Unbirded localities of the world (1 Viewer)

[jurek]

A spin off from the undescribed birds thread.

What are places in the world which are not visited by birders and ornithologists and can potentially have unknown birds? Not counting unbirded places which are unlikely to have interesting or any birds, like polar ice caps, or uniform boreal forests of Canada.

I think most of DR Congo, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan qualify, because they are dangerous to visit since several decades. Aren't there some mountain ranges in the Andes? Some small islets in Indonesia? East Himalayas in the Arunuchal Pradesh - China - Myanmar junction?

 

[DMW]

I spent the best part of a month birding on the Burma-Arunachal Pradesh-Yunnan border (quite) a few years ago. There was a period when North Kachin State opened up and it was possible to trek up into the mountains with a police escort. It was (and hopefully still is) an incredible area with beautiful rivers and forests - the motherlode of East Himalayan birds. We found several species that apparently hadn't been recorded in Burma since WW2, many species well above the altitudinal ranges given in Robson, and most bizarre of all, a Pin-tailed Parrotfinch hundreds of kilometres north of it's known range.

A few other groups visited in the same time frame as us, so the region isn't unbirded, but it's certainly little birded and it's not too fanciful to think there could be an undescribed bird taxon lurking in those valleys.

 

[Ficedula]

As far as I know no birder has ever reached the high reaches of the Whiteman Mountains in New Britain, I tried in 1993 but failed.
I don't think anyone has been into the Fakfak mountains since my trip in 1992.
Jared Diamond visited the Kumawa Mountains, but no birders since that I have heard of.
Other ranges with potential new taxa are Tamrau Mountains, Wondiwoi Mountains and Van Rees Mountains.
Someone must have birded to the top of the Cyclops mountains? but I've not heard about it. The base of these mountains easily accessible, but they are very steep and apparently trackless?

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

I suspect there may be some parts of southern Venezuela that could turn up something new.

 

[01101001]

Not counting unbirded places which are unlikely to have interesting or any birds, like polar ice caps, or uniform boreal forests of Canada.

Bicknell's Thrush?

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Andamans? I believe they're off limits now, has that always been the case?

 

[DMW]

Andamans? I believe they're off limits now, has that always been the case?

Do you mean the Nicobars? Most of the Andamans have easily accessible for decades. The Nicobars were somewhat recently opened to foreign tourists in theory, but it seems that actually arranging a visit is problematic. Quite a lot of Indian birders have been, though. There's an undescribed rail there.

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Nicobars was it, my mistake. I thought the indigenous people there were strongly against visits from outsiders, rendering the islands effectively unvisitable. I'm likely out of date, if not entirely wrong!

 

[dantheman]

Unvisitable Rail? - another of those elusive island critters ... ;-)

 

[Xenospiza]

Nicobars was it, my mistake. I thought the indigenous people there were strongly against visits from outsiders, rendering the islands effectively unvisitable. I'm likely out of date, if not entirely wrong!

There might be something on North Sentinel (Andamans), but we will hopefully never know!

There are plenty of places in Peru that receive little attention (look at all those outlying ridges): something less obvious than a barbet could easily hide there.
Or at the very least yet more Herpsilochmus antwrens...

 

[KenM]

When I think of how long I can go without seeing Wren or Song Thrush in the garden sometimes months for both, I often think about the wild and almost inaccessible places on the planet….😮

 

[Ficedula]

There might be something on North Sentinel (Andamans), but we will hopefully never know!

There are plenty of places in Peru that receive little attention (look at all those outlying ridges): something less obvious than a barbet could easily hide there.
Or at the very least yet more Herpsilochmus antwrens...

Certainly there will still be many undiscovered species lurking in most parts of the tropics, but most are likely to be very low-density species that might take years of fieldwork before they come to light. I took the meaning of the OP as asking about places that are unbirded to the extent that even common species are undiscovered or not seen since first collected. All you need to do is go there and you will discover them. I think all the New Guinea locations I list up thread fall into this category. The difficulty is getting to them and up to the "endemicity" altitude and not finding the birds once there.

 

[angusmcoatup]

Taking the thread title at face value, just looking out of my windows in SW Turkey I can see huge expanses of forested or dry hillside with very little accessibility. Then there’s the offroad areas of marsh ,pasture and rarely visited lake bays too, all in a relatively small area compared to the size of the country.
Most birders I hear of visit in late spring through to early autumn in fairly small numbers. Before and after then only a few names appear on ebird and I rarely bump into any other birders.
Although there are a number of dedicated and extremely knowledgeable birders living here there must be so many interesting birds missed due to lack of consistent coverage.
Obviously I’m not suggesting new species but new breeders or an unknown population of birds could escape detection quite easily I would think.

 

[Xenospiza]

Certainly there will still be many undiscovered species lurking in most parts of the tropics, but most are likely to be very low-density species that might take years of fieldwork before they come to light. I took the meaning of the OP as asking about places that are unbirded to the extent that even common species are undiscovered or not seen since first collected. All you need to do is go there and you will discover them. I think all the New Guinea locations I list up thread fall into this category. The difficulty is getting to them and up to the "endemicity" altitude and not finding the birds once there.

I answered the question "what [...] places [...] can potentially have unknown birds".
Many of the known East Andean birds appear to be near-impossible to see currently, which may in part be because we cannot/do not go where they are.
There may well be common birds hiding there – why wouldn't there be another Vilcabamba Spinetail (high density, but very local) a bit further east?
And I am wondering about the red parakeet I saw in a little-visited part of Peru this year: was that just a freak or something much better?

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Taking the thread title at face value, just looking out of my windows in SW Turkey I can see huge expanses of forested or dry hillside with very little accessibility. Then there’s the offroad areas of marsh ,pasture and rarely visited lake bays too, all in a relatively small area compared to the size of the country.
Most birders I hear of visit in late spring through to early autumn in fairly small numbers. Before and after then only a few names appear on ebird and I rarely bump into any other birders.
Although there are a number of dedicated and extremely knowledgeable birders living here there must be so many interesting birds missed due to lack of consistent coverage.
Obviously I’m not suggesting new species but new breeders or an unknown population of birds could escape detection quite easily I would think.

The seasonal thing is interesting in that a lot of parts of the world tend to be visited at specific times of the year. Even in Europe, there's a lot of potential for discovery in less birded areas at unusual times of the year. Discovering new migration routes, hotspots and wintering areas is still pretty easy to do in many places.

 

[Xenospiza]

Many years ago, I found Tristram's Bunting in Korea in the breeding season.
It had only been discovered as a breeding bird that year, but in a different national park.
The weather on the last day reminded me why people don't visit in July (200 mm of rain).

 

[KenM]

If we take “the urban” habitat that most birders “don’t do”, from my experience over the last twenty years, I’ve found a few scarce migs in relatively heavy urban footfall areas (let alone my patch).
What chance in the rest of the inaccessible low density parts of the planet….it must be
Gi-normous!
If memory serves?….was it not Bill Oddie who either spent the night, or the best part of the following day just “sitting” by “the plantation” at Blakeney point for many hours, looking at “no sign of life” when suddenly…several migs morphed into view from within a small isolated bushy area and proceeded to “show”, clearly been present for some time.😮

 

[jurek]

Other ranges with potential new taxa are Tamrau Mountains, Wondiwoi Mountains and Van Rees Mountains.

I looked at the map and the top of Wondiwoi Mountains chain is at times just 5 km from a road and a village - surely this must be reachable... Some people found tree kangaroos there.

You made me dream - although I doubt if I can go there ever...

 

[Ficedula]

I looked at the map and the top of Wondiwoi Mountains chain is at times just 5 km from a road and a village - surely this must be reachable... Some people found tree kangaroos there.

You made me dream - although I doubt if I can go there ever...

Indeed, it is the existence (or former existence ) of the Wondiwoi tree-kangaroo that makes me think this is a possible candidate for an unbirded location with potential undescribed taxa.

 

[raymie]

Taking the thread title at face value, just looking out of my windows in SW Turkey I can see huge expanses of forested or dry hillside with very little accessibility. Then there’s the offroad areas of marsh ,pasture and rarely visited lake bays too, all in a relatively small area compared to the size of the country.
Most birders I hear of visit in late spring through to early autumn in fairly small numbers. Before and after then only a few names appear on ebird and I rarely bump into any other birders.
Although there are a number of dedicated and extremely knowledgeable birders living here there must be so many interesting birds missed due to lack of consistent coverage.
Obviously I’m not suggesting new species but new breeders or an unknown population of birds could escape detection quite easily I would think.

Of this caliber, I wonder if anything interesting is hiding in Mount Athos?