taxonomy of the New Brittain kingfisher?

[Papuan birder]

I have been searching around in books and on different websites for a while now in order to find any good info about the Black-headed Paradise-Kingfisher of New Brittain, Iam planning to start building on a website which will involve all species/subspecies found in the region Waigeo to the Solomon Islands.

Some references still seems to treat the Black-headed Paradise-Kingfisher as a subspecies of the Buff-breasted paradise-kingfisher, the info available on this specific bird is limited and I almost only have the HBW book and a few recent trip reports to go on, the HBW book still treat it as a subspecies but on the other hand, the HBW book start to get a bit out of date and it might not longer be reliable when it comes to taxanomy, most people which makes recent trip reports from this island seems to treat this bird as an own species now, a New Brittain endemic. I personally think that it is a own species as by looking on the HBW pic it differ to much from the buff-breasted and the population on New Brittian is also to isolated to be just a subspecies in my opinion.



But Iam not an expery on taxonomy and would be very glad if someone could correct or if you could give your view of the current status of this bird.


/Papuan birder

[Rasmus Boegh]

No really good arguments for treating the Black-headed PK (nigriceps group) as anything but a race of the Buff-breasted have been published (and they are, to my knowledge, still treated as conspecific by all major lists). After all, it mainly differ in being darker on the crown and paler below compared to the Australian nominate. This can hardly be considered convincing evidence for species recognition by the BSC, especially as race salvadoriana (the race in between nominate and the nigriceps group) actually is somewhat intermediate, i.e. its head resemble the nominate with the blue crown, but the underparts are paler and thus approach the nigriceps group. Likewise, there is a reported variation in voice, basically falling into three main groups (nominate, ssp. salvadoriana and the nigriceps group), but this variation may be clinal (as was shown recently in the Variable Antshrike). Anyway, there can be no doubts that the nigriceps group is worthy of further study and I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a distinct species. So far, however, good solid evidence for this has not been published (at least not to my knowledge).

BTW: For people not knowing this species here are links to photos of the two forms. First, nominate Buff-breasted:

http://www.aviceda.org/abid/birdimages.php?action=birdspecies&fid=15&bid=107

Black-headed (nigriceps group of Buff-breasted):

http://www.surfbirds.com/media/gallery_photos/20051011061339.jpg
http://uk.geocities.com/jg.merrill@btinternet.com/png_images/72_bhpkingfisher.jpg

The two Black-headed are by Ian Merril who also wrote an excellent report about Papua New Guinea and New Britain (but the bandwidth on his page is pretty limited - if the link doesn't work now, you'll have to wait an hour or two):

http://uk.geocities.com/jg.merrill@btinternet.com/png_report.htm

[Papuan birder]

Thanks Rasmus,

Good to ben sure as I hadent know about the bird before.