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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Madagascar pochard (1 Viewer)

I have heard Pochard pronounced quite a few ways but the woman talking about the ducklings on Radio 2 (UK) came up with a new one.

Steve
 
Bamford, Sam, Razafindrajao, Robson, Woolaver & René de Roland (in press). The status and ecology of the last wild population of Madagascar Pochard Aythya innotata. BCI. [abstract]

BirdLife: Species factsheet.

PS. Sorry, the BCI article seems to have been almost immediately removed from the journal website.
 
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Rarest bird, or rarest bird that it's easy to count because it sits in flocks on lakes? I guess the assumption is that canopy-dwelling tropical forest species that are only seen once every decade or so like Kinglet Calyptura or the undescribed Bornean flowerpecker, or species from remote regions like Nechisar Nightjar and Sillem's Ground-finch, must have larger populations, if only a reliable way could be found of assessing their population size.
 
The claims of 'rarest' or 'new' species are recently too overused, indeed. Nice bird however, and I hope a place for reintroduction will be found.

BTW, I would not be surprised if more populations are overlooked in unsurveyed parts of Madagascar. Friends looked for lizards there, and say it was easy to find a village where no scientists or no Westerners visited within living memory.
 
StevePreddy said:
Rarest bird, or rarest bird that it's easy to count because it sits in flocks on lakes?
Click to expand...

Yes, unlikely to be true. There are a number of birds which are known to be extant but are likey to have smaller populations sizes, and without a reserve captive population. Alagoas Antwren and Jerdon's Courser are a couple of suggestions whilst a top tip for a truly functionaly extinct species is Great Indian Bustard.

cheers, a
 
jurek said:
BTW, I would not be surprised if more populations are overlooked in unsurveyed parts of Madagascar. Friends looked for lizards there, and say it was easy to find a village where no scientists or no Westerners visited within living memory.
Click to expand...

I doubt there are many villages in Madagascar located next to large wetlands which have not been inundated with conservation biologists - there have been systematic searches for Mad Pochard for decades, and I think pretty much all the "likely" wetlands have been very well surveyed.

The discovery at Bemanavika was a complete surprise. I suppose there could be similar undiscovered populations, but it seems the Bemanavika population is not self-sustaining, and finding another one or two other small crater lakes with a handful of birds probably isn't going to make much difference to the survival of the species in the wild.
 
lewis20126 said:
Yes, unlikely to be true. There are a number of birds which are known to be extant but are likey to have smaller populations sizes, and without a reserve captive population. Alagoas Antwren and Jerdon's Courser are a couple of suggestions whilst a top tip for a truly functionaly extinct species is Great Indian Bustard.

cheers, a
Click to expand...

The Great Indian Bustard is not functionally extinct, not yet anyways. I came back from a trip to northern India a few weeks ago and the population in Rajasthan still numbers around 100 birds with breeding confirmed at a number of sites this year according to our local guides, though I would bet that it's functionally extinct in the rest of India.

It's quite obvious that past and current awareness programme is not having the desired effect. One have to wonder why conservation measures such as captive breeding have never been considered, seeing as it's proving rather successful with other species of bustard.
 
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Papuan birder said:
The Great Indian Bustard is not functionally extinct, not yet anyways. I came back from a trip to northern India a few weeks ago and the population in Rajasthan still numbers around 100 birds with breeding confirmed at a number of sites this year according to our local guides, though I would bet that it's functionally extinct in the rest of India.
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Interesting, I was in Rajasthan a month ago, (admittedly in the south) and although I was told of one known nest in 2015, the outlook was painted as being very bleak indeed. A critically endangered large shy bird, highly disturbance prone in reducing pockets of ever degraded habitats is as functionally extinct in my book, when there is little or no recruitment into the population.

cheers, alan
 
lewis20126 said:
Interesting, I was in Rajasthan a month ago, (admittedly in the south) and although I was told of one known nest in 2015, the outlook was painted as being very bleak indeed. A critically endangered large shy bird, highly disturbance prone in reducing pockets of ever degraded habitats is as functionally extinct in my book, when there is little or no recruitment into the population.

cheers, alan
Click to expand...

I guess we can argue over the semantics of "functionally extinct", but I would tend to agree with this pessimistic assessment. The population is essentially a diminishing population of ageing birds with next to no recruitment.
 
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