BarbatusOne
Blake Matheson
The Matheson 100
© Blake T. Matheson 2005
Inspiration and Methods
What follows is my attempt to rank the 100 “best” birds on earth. The inspiration behind this undertaking must largely be attributed to the legendary Don Roberson of California birding renown, and his captivating “50 Best Birds of the World” which can be found on his equally famous website creagrus. My list, like Don’s, cannot help but be a reflection of our own personal values and criteria for what constitutes making a bird “good” or better than another. I have, however, tried to make mine as scientific as possible within the parameters I have set for the notion of avian desirability or “goodness."
My list considers the following as criteria for making a bird “better” from the birders perspective than another: Threat of Extinction, Impressiveness, Taxonomic Interest, Geographic Considerations, Numerical Rarity and Special Circumstances. These six criteria are not all weighted equally. To me, the two principle considerations in making a bird a “must” see worthy of expending considerable blood, toil, sweat, tears and treasure in search of, are dually the possibility of its near future extinction, and the awe which the animal’s physical (entailing also behavioral) characteristics are capable of inspiring. Thus these two criteria were rated equally to one another, but greater than the other four categories. Specifically, these two categories influenced the rankings at a margin of five to two. The implications and purpose of this bias is clear enough: in order to be considered one of 100 best birds on earth, a bird must be both physically inspiring and its survival in the near future must be seriously threatened. The importance of the former category in such an undertaking is obvious enough, perhaps the latter should be commented on a little more, given its unique influence and the perhaps less obvious motivation behind it.
Serious birders bird for different reasons. Some are principally competitive sportsmen who seek to accumulate as large a list as possible over their competitors for the honors, the chase and the exhilaration. Many birders mainly do so as a means of communing with nature through the medium of this uniquely beautiful, diverse and evocative class of creatures. Still others bird the world as a means of seeing as many unique and distinctive examples of life on the planet as possible; thus there has lately been a preponderance of “Family Collectors,” on the world circuit (those who seek to observe a representative of every family of birds on the planet). I bird for all the reasons above, but my main inspiration is also one that surely drives and inspires most other world listers at least to some degree, but has acquired a particularly potent place in my avian psyche: the need to see birds before they are gone: for good. The earth witnessed scores of bird extinctions over the past century, and all the quantitative evidence suggests that trend will only accelerate in the next: I want to see these spectacular creatures before that happens. Understand this, and you understand the spirit behind the apparatus which produced the list.
That being said, there are many other criteria that must affect a bird's desirability, in addition to just being very impressive and very endangered. These are the secondary qualities mentioned above; thus once it has been established that a bird is particularly spectacular and particularly endangered, I asked the following in each of these categories:
Geography: 1.) How restricted is its range? 2.) Is it endemic? 3.) How remote or inaccessible is its habitat?
Numerical Rarity: How many individuals within the species remain extant?
Taxonomic Interest: Is this bird the representative of a monotypic family? Is it the representative of a monotypic genus? If it shares its genus or family with other species, how distinctive, unusual, restricted or obscure is that genus or family?
Special Circumstances: Principally used as a subjective means of breaking ties where birds received equal scores in all of the above categories, and the tie could not be resolved by assigning the higher rank to the more endangered individual. Here I considered how much it is sought after by knowledgeable birders, and other factors regarding allure that could not be quantified.
You will note from the list below that there are many “Red-letter” birds, long famous among birders that have not made the top 100. Wallcreeper, Ibisbill, Lammergeier, The Crowned Pigeons, many of the Birds-of-Paradise and Harpy Eagle, just to name a few may seem conspicuous in their absence. As much as I wanted to include these birds the ultimate design of my scale prevented it. While they all earned top notch marks in the crucially important
“impressive” category, they simply aren’t that endangered (thank goodness) most are easy to see and some are very wide-ranging and numerous. Indeed, the tender affection with which they are regarded by the countless birders who have observed them in the field testifies plainly to their accessibility if not their abundance. Further I have made no arbitrary attempt to get representatives from a lot of families or regions on the list. Thus you will see that there a great deal of A) Parrots, B) Paradise Flycatchers, C) Curassows and D) Ibises on the list; this is because each of these families uniquely contain a surfeit of extremely spectacular and critically endangered species (though many of those below occupy their own fascinating and unique monotypic genus, making them the flagship species’ of their family, birds like Golden Parakeet and Vulturine Parrot, for example). While it would make the list “look” better to have more diverse representatives from more famous families like Penguins, Cassowaries and Birds-of-Paradise present and ranked higher, the selection criteria of endangerment first simply forbade such an arrangement and gerry-rigging of the final product. If you want a list that places a higher emphasis on charisma, fame and makes a conscious effort to contain a diversity of birds from around the world and from among many families, the Roberson list is unparalleled and will suit your tastes.
This list required several weeks of long nights to produce in front of the computer and adding machine as well as milling through the tomes at the Oxford Ornithology Library to produce. I began with a list of over one thousand birds, which contained just about everything considered by any world birder to be of interest, devised the numerical formula that would reflect my values for desirability, then applied it to each of those birds. The final score is a measure of A) how each of these species compares every other individual in class Aves and B) How they comparatively ranked against each other. To put these scores in to context, while the Philippine Eagle scored 95.5%, a bird such as a House Wren, House Sparrow, or Chiffchaff would rank somewhere between .001% and 1%.
A Note on Extinctions: Where a species’ continued existence is uncertain or in doubt I have considered all the available evidence to decide whether I believe that species does or does not persist, such as: the remoteness of the bird’s habitat; the reliability of recent sightings; the nature of the bird’s behavior. If I believe it probably does exist in the wild it makes the list. If I believe it more likely that it is extinct in the wild it does not. Thus White-eyed River-Martin, Himalayan Quail, Glaucous Macaw and Night Parrot, have made the list. Other birds like Bachman’s Warbler, Spix’s Macaw, and several of the Hawaiian Honeycreepers including Ou have not. One week ago, nearing the end of this undertaking I had classed Ivory-billed Woodpecker, with the first group, that is the “likely to persist” group. Discovering I was correct in that assumption on April 27, 2005 was one of the happier and more memorable days in my life, as well as those countless other birders across America and the globe.
The List
1. Philippine Eagle: 99.54%
2. Kakapo: 99.33%
3. Bali Starling: 99.14%
4. Ivory-billed Woodpecker: 99.05%
5. Rodonia Bushbird: 98.96%
6. Kinglet Calyptura: 98.87%
7. Northern Bald-Ibis: 98.78%
8. Marvelous Spatuletail: 98.69%
9. Maui Parrotbill: 98.6%
10. Glaucous Macaw: 98.51%
11. Forest Owlet: 98.5%
12. Araripe Manakin: 98.32%
13. Juan Fernandez Firecrown: 98.23%
14. A'kohekohe: 98.14%
15. White-eyed River-Martin: 98.05%
16. Streseman's Bristlefront: 97.96%
17. Pink-headed Duck: 97.87%
18. Jerdon’s Courser: 97.78%
19. Night Parrot: 97.68%
20. Trinidad Piping-Guan: 97.59%
21. Gurney’s Pitta: 97.5%
22. New Caledonia Owlet-Nightjar: 97.41%
23. Takahe: 97.22%
24. California Condor: 97.13%
25. Colorful Puffleg: 96.94%
26. Lear's Macaw: 96.85%
27. Mauritius Fody: 96.67%
28. Sociable Lapwing: 96.58%
29. Cerulean Paradise-Flycatcher: 96.49%
30. Tuamotu Sandpiper: 96.4%
31. Kagu: 96.21%
32. Philippine Cockatoo: 96.12%
33. Sao Tome Grosbeak: 96.03%
34. Crested Ibis: 95.94%
35. Black-eared Miner: 95.85%
36. Golden Parakeet: 95.76%
37. Kokako: 95.67%
38. Tooth-billed Pigeon: 95.58%
39. Chuuk Monarch: 95.49%
40. Dwarf Olive Ibis: 95.4%
41. Bengal Florican: 95.31%
42. Lesser Florican: 95.3%
43. Talaud Rail: 95.21%
44. Horned Guan: 95.12%
45. Siberian Crane: 95.03%
46. Himalayan Quail: 94.94%
47. Blue-billed Curassow: 94.85%
48. Okinawa Woodpecker: 94.76%
49. White-winged Guan: 94.57%
50. Biak Monarch: 94.48%
51. Storm's Stork: 94.39%
52. Congo Bay-Owl: 94.3%
53. White-eared Night-Heron: 94.31%
54. Imperial Amazon: 94.22%
55. Peruvian Plantcutter: 94.12%
56. Cebu Flowerpecker: 94.03%
57. White-shouldered Ibis: 93.94%
58. Jocoto Antpitta: 93.85%
59. Regent Honey-eater: 93.76%
60. Yellow-eared Parrot: 93.67%
61. Fuerte's Parrot: 93.47%
62. Cherry-throated Tanager: 93.38%
63. Ultramarine Lorikeet: 93.29%
64. Giant Ibis: 93.2%
65. Grey-necked Rockfowl: 93.11%
66. White-necked Rockfowl: 93.02%
67. Campbell Island Teal: 92.93%
68. Algoas Curassow: 92.84%
69. Visayan Wrinkled-Hornbill: 92.75%
70. Seychelles Paradise-Flycatcher: 92.66%
71. Long-whiskered Owlet: 92.47%
72. Red-and-Blue Lory: 92.38%
73. Pink-billed Parrotfinch: 92.29%
74. Black Stilt: 92.2%
75. Blue-throated Macaw: 92.11%
76. Mauritius Parakeet: 92.02%
77. Bahia Tapaculo: 91.93%
78. Mallee Emuwren: 91.74%
79. Red-crowned Crane: 91.64%
80. Banded Cotinga: 91.55%
81. Laysan Teal: 91.46%
82. Hyacinth Macaw: 91.37%
83. Shoebill: 91.28%
84. Snoring Rail: 91.19%
85. Crested Argus: 91.1%
86. Amsterdam Albatross: 91.01%
87. Slender-billed Curlew: 90.92%
88. Udzungwa Forest-Partridge: 90.83%
89. Elegant Sunbird: 90.74%
90. Pesquet's or Vulturine Parrot: 90.55%
91. Strange-Tailed Tryant: 90.46%
92. Long-tailed Ground-Roller: 90.37%
93. Congo Peafowl: 90.18%
94. Blythe’s Tragopan: 90.09%
95. Helmet Vanga: 90%
96. Plains Wanderer: 89.91%
97. Little Brown Kiwi: 89.82%
98. Yellow-bellied Asity: 89.73%
99. Black Sicklebill: 89.64%
100. Northern Cassowary: 89.55%
Near misses included Silktail, Blue Bird-of-Paradise, White-winged Cotinga, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Greater Adjutant, Madagascar Fish-Eagle, Red Fish-Owl, Oriental Stork and Abbot’s Booby.
© Blake T. Matheson 2005
Inspiration and Methods
What follows is my attempt to rank the 100 “best” birds on earth. The inspiration behind this undertaking must largely be attributed to the legendary Don Roberson of California birding renown, and his captivating “50 Best Birds of the World” which can be found on his equally famous website creagrus. My list, like Don’s, cannot help but be a reflection of our own personal values and criteria for what constitutes making a bird “good” or better than another. I have, however, tried to make mine as scientific as possible within the parameters I have set for the notion of avian desirability or “goodness."
My list considers the following as criteria for making a bird “better” from the birders perspective than another: Threat of Extinction, Impressiveness, Taxonomic Interest, Geographic Considerations, Numerical Rarity and Special Circumstances. These six criteria are not all weighted equally. To me, the two principle considerations in making a bird a “must” see worthy of expending considerable blood, toil, sweat, tears and treasure in search of, are dually the possibility of its near future extinction, and the awe which the animal’s physical (entailing also behavioral) characteristics are capable of inspiring. Thus these two criteria were rated equally to one another, but greater than the other four categories. Specifically, these two categories influenced the rankings at a margin of five to two. The implications and purpose of this bias is clear enough: in order to be considered one of 100 best birds on earth, a bird must be both physically inspiring and its survival in the near future must be seriously threatened. The importance of the former category in such an undertaking is obvious enough, perhaps the latter should be commented on a little more, given its unique influence and the perhaps less obvious motivation behind it.
Serious birders bird for different reasons. Some are principally competitive sportsmen who seek to accumulate as large a list as possible over their competitors for the honors, the chase and the exhilaration. Many birders mainly do so as a means of communing with nature through the medium of this uniquely beautiful, diverse and evocative class of creatures. Still others bird the world as a means of seeing as many unique and distinctive examples of life on the planet as possible; thus there has lately been a preponderance of “Family Collectors,” on the world circuit (those who seek to observe a representative of every family of birds on the planet). I bird for all the reasons above, but my main inspiration is also one that surely drives and inspires most other world listers at least to some degree, but has acquired a particularly potent place in my avian psyche: the need to see birds before they are gone: for good. The earth witnessed scores of bird extinctions over the past century, and all the quantitative evidence suggests that trend will only accelerate in the next: I want to see these spectacular creatures before that happens. Understand this, and you understand the spirit behind the apparatus which produced the list.
That being said, there are many other criteria that must affect a bird's desirability, in addition to just being very impressive and very endangered. These are the secondary qualities mentioned above; thus once it has been established that a bird is particularly spectacular and particularly endangered, I asked the following in each of these categories:
Geography: 1.) How restricted is its range? 2.) Is it endemic? 3.) How remote or inaccessible is its habitat?
Numerical Rarity: How many individuals within the species remain extant?
Taxonomic Interest: Is this bird the representative of a monotypic family? Is it the representative of a monotypic genus? If it shares its genus or family with other species, how distinctive, unusual, restricted or obscure is that genus or family?
Special Circumstances: Principally used as a subjective means of breaking ties where birds received equal scores in all of the above categories, and the tie could not be resolved by assigning the higher rank to the more endangered individual. Here I considered how much it is sought after by knowledgeable birders, and other factors regarding allure that could not be quantified.
You will note from the list below that there are many “Red-letter” birds, long famous among birders that have not made the top 100. Wallcreeper, Ibisbill, Lammergeier, The Crowned Pigeons, many of the Birds-of-Paradise and Harpy Eagle, just to name a few may seem conspicuous in their absence. As much as I wanted to include these birds the ultimate design of my scale prevented it. While they all earned top notch marks in the crucially important
“impressive” category, they simply aren’t that endangered (thank goodness) most are easy to see and some are very wide-ranging and numerous. Indeed, the tender affection with which they are regarded by the countless birders who have observed them in the field testifies plainly to their accessibility if not their abundance. Further I have made no arbitrary attempt to get representatives from a lot of families or regions on the list. Thus you will see that there a great deal of A) Parrots, B) Paradise Flycatchers, C) Curassows and D) Ibises on the list; this is because each of these families uniquely contain a surfeit of extremely spectacular and critically endangered species (though many of those below occupy their own fascinating and unique monotypic genus, making them the flagship species’ of their family, birds like Golden Parakeet and Vulturine Parrot, for example). While it would make the list “look” better to have more diverse representatives from more famous families like Penguins, Cassowaries and Birds-of-Paradise present and ranked higher, the selection criteria of endangerment first simply forbade such an arrangement and gerry-rigging of the final product. If you want a list that places a higher emphasis on charisma, fame and makes a conscious effort to contain a diversity of birds from around the world and from among many families, the Roberson list is unparalleled and will suit your tastes.
This list required several weeks of long nights to produce in front of the computer and adding machine as well as milling through the tomes at the Oxford Ornithology Library to produce. I began with a list of over one thousand birds, which contained just about everything considered by any world birder to be of interest, devised the numerical formula that would reflect my values for desirability, then applied it to each of those birds. The final score is a measure of A) how each of these species compares every other individual in class Aves and B) How they comparatively ranked against each other. To put these scores in to context, while the Philippine Eagle scored 95.5%, a bird such as a House Wren, House Sparrow, or Chiffchaff would rank somewhere between .001% and 1%.
A Note on Extinctions: Where a species’ continued existence is uncertain or in doubt I have considered all the available evidence to decide whether I believe that species does or does not persist, such as: the remoteness of the bird’s habitat; the reliability of recent sightings; the nature of the bird’s behavior. If I believe it probably does exist in the wild it makes the list. If I believe it more likely that it is extinct in the wild it does not. Thus White-eyed River-Martin, Himalayan Quail, Glaucous Macaw and Night Parrot, have made the list. Other birds like Bachman’s Warbler, Spix’s Macaw, and several of the Hawaiian Honeycreepers including Ou have not. One week ago, nearing the end of this undertaking I had classed Ivory-billed Woodpecker, with the first group, that is the “likely to persist” group. Discovering I was correct in that assumption on April 27, 2005 was one of the happier and more memorable days in my life, as well as those countless other birders across America and the globe.
The List
1. Philippine Eagle: 99.54%
2. Kakapo: 99.33%
3. Bali Starling: 99.14%
4. Ivory-billed Woodpecker: 99.05%
5. Rodonia Bushbird: 98.96%
6. Kinglet Calyptura: 98.87%
7. Northern Bald-Ibis: 98.78%
8. Marvelous Spatuletail: 98.69%
9. Maui Parrotbill: 98.6%
10. Glaucous Macaw: 98.51%
11. Forest Owlet: 98.5%
12. Araripe Manakin: 98.32%
13. Juan Fernandez Firecrown: 98.23%
14. A'kohekohe: 98.14%
15. White-eyed River-Martin: 98.05%
16. Streseman's Bristlefront: 97.96%
17. Pink-headed Duck: 97.87%
18. Jerdon’s Courser: 97.78%
19. Night Parrot: 97.68%
20. Trinidad Piping-Guan: 97.59%
21. Gurney’s Pitta: 97.5%
22. New Caledonia Owlet-Nightjar: 97.41%
23. Takahe: 97.22%
24. California Condor: 97.13%
25. Colorful Puffleg: 96.94%
26. Lear's Macaw: 96.85%
27. Mauritius Fody: 96.67%
28. Sociable Lapwing: 96.58%
29. Cerulean Paradise-Flycatcher: 96.49%
30. Tuamotu Sandpiper: 96.4%
31. Kagu: 96.21%
32. Philippine Cockatoo: 96.12%
33. Sao Tome Grosbeak: 96.03%
34. Crested Ibis: 95.94%
35. Black-eared Miner: 95.85%
36. Golden Parakeet: 95.76%
37. Kokako: 95.67%
38. Tooth-billed Pigeon: 95.58%
39. Chuuk Monarch: 95.49%
40. Dwarf Olive Ibis: 95.4%
41. Bengal Florican: 95.31%
42. Lesser Florican: 95.3%
43. Talaud Rail: 95.21%
44. Horned Guan: 95.12%
45. Siberian Crane: 95.03%
46. Himalayan Quail: 94.94%
47. Blue-billed Curassow: 94.85%
48. Okinawa Woodpecker: 94.76%
49. White-winged Guan: 94.57%
50. Biak Monarch: 94.48%
51. Storm's Stork: 94.39%
52. Congo Bay-Owl: 94.3%
53. White-eared Night-Heron: 94.31%
54. Imperial Amazon: 94.22%
55. Peruvian Plantcutter: 94.12%
56. Cebu Flowerpecker: 94.03%
57. White-shouldered Ibis: 93.94%
58. Jocoto Antpitta: 93.85%
59. Regent Honey-eater: 93.76%
60. Yellow-eared Parrot: 93.67%
61. Fuerte's Parrot: 93.47%
62. Cherry-throated Tanager: 93.38%
63. Ultramarine Lorikeet: 93.29%
64. Giant Ibis: 93.2%
65. Grey-necked Rockfowl: 93.11%
66. White-necked Rockfowl: 93.02%
67. Campbell Island Teal: 92.93%
68. Algoas Curassow: 92.84%
69. Visayan Wrinkled-Hornbill: 92.75%
70. Seychelles Paradise-Flycatcher: 92.66%
71. Long-whiskered Owlet: 92.47%
72. Red-and-Blue Lory: 92.38%
73. Pink-billed Parrotfinch: 92.29%
74. Black Stilt: 92.2%
75. Blue-throated Macaw: 92.11%
76. Mauritius Parakeet: 92.02%
77. Bahia Tapaculo: 91.93%
78. Mallee Emuwren: 91.74%
79. Red-crowned Crane: 91.64%
80. Banded Cotinga: 91.55%
81. Laysan Teal: 91.46%
82. Hyacinth Macaw: 91.37%
83. Shoebill: 91.28%
84. Snoring Rail: 91.19%
85. Crested Argus: 91.1%
86. Amsterdam Albatross: 91.01%
87. Slender-billed Curlew: 90.92%
88. Udzungwa Forest-Partridge: 90.83%
89. Elegant Sunbird: 90.74%
90. Pesquet's or Vulturine Parrot: 90.55%
91. Strange-Tailed Tryant: 90.46%
92. Long-tailed Ground-Roller: 90.37%
93. Congo Peafowl: 90.18%
94. Blythe’s Tragopan: 90.09%
95. Helmet Vanga: 90%
96. Plains Wanderer: 89.91%
97. Little Brown Kiwi: 89.82%
98. Yellow-bellied Asity: 89.73%
99. Black Sicklebill: 89.64%
100. Northern Cassowary: 89.55%
Near misses included Silktail, Blue Bird-of-Paradise, White-winged Cotinga, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Greater Adjutant, Madagascar Fish-Eagle, Red Fish-Owl, Oriental Stork and Abbot’s Booby.
Last edited: