New bulbul on Laos?

[Brian S]

A photo of a 'mystery' bulbul has been posted by Stijn de Win on the World Rarities page, with a link to here http://www.birding2asia.com/articles/LaosMysteryBulbul.html.

Can anybody help Stijn and comment on his bird?

Brian S

[wintibird]

As I understand the article Stijin doesn't need any more help. The species is not (yet) oficially described (obviously they needed ten years for that), but known to science.
However I don't know why they kept the discovery quiet for such a long time.

André

[Alex Lees]

As I understand the article Stijin doesn't need any more help. The species is not (yet) oficially described (obviously they needed ten years for that), but known to science.
However I don't know why they kept the discovery quiet for such a long time.

André

Its just symptompatic of the state of Asian alpha taxonomy: little manpower and less funding. One of my friends working in the Amazon has a backlog of 15 new birds to describe....

[Stijn]

Dear Alex, all,

A nice opportunity for me to sign up for this lovely forum.

I suggest Alex to read more carefully before posting. Nice signature!!! Expensive difficult words! It’s incredible how much time I lost because I got into contact with scientists…

I have shown full respect in my article to the original finders of the bird and the describers (scientists?) of the species! I do fully understand that a description might take a long time, although most people would think 11 years to be a bit on the long side.
Copy and paste from the article;
Not sure though what took these guys so long to let the world know,…

The birds, whatever they are (I don’t care so much after all), should not have been kept a secret for 11 years. If I may put a suggestion here; they could have come up with some kind of pre-release and stick a name on it, rather than seek all the credit and recognition and publicity that will be on next month. Perhaps the original finder should be ashamed instead of proud. But again, I’ve shown all respect in my article and I’m sorry to let go of some thoughts here.

Hope ‘the’ friend, although this is hard to believe, isn’t keeping 15 birds a secret for the world. If the Bulbul guys had been smart enough to let the world know, they should have got full support and lots of funding…a missed opportunity.

I made the terrible mistake to discover a new species…

[Brian S]

Hello Stijn

Welcome to the Surfbirds forum. The situation you find yourself in is somewhat comparable with that of Dave Bakewell and Peter Kennerley, who published their 'White-faced Plover' article on Surfbirds. I feel sure that in doing so they raised the awareness and collated a great deal of information about the plover.

I feel sure that some would have criticised them for placing the first 'note' on the internet, but they did so (without claiming it was any new species) and proved that it is as good a place as any to publish.

Brian Small

[Stijn]

Although I've been left with a mixed feeling (last line of my post) I would like to use this opportunity to thank all the people that have supported me so much to bring this ‘big’ news available for all. I would like to thank Brian and Andre for their posts and understanding showed in this forum thread. I would like to thank all the others.
Thank you,
Stijn

[Alex Lees]

Hi Stijn

I'm not sure what you mean by:


I suggest Alex to read more carefully before posting. Nice signature!!! Expensive difficult words!

I'll interpret it as a non-specific negative comment. Anyway....

Congratulations on independently discovering a bona fide new bird species, it’s certainly a life time ambition of mine. Finding something so unique is indeed a true rarity these days and top marks for pioneering a poorly-inventoried region.

My comments allude to my own experience in the Amazon basin, I have had the good fortune to see several undescribed bird species, some of these now have names, others don't yet. I have been shown skins of some incredible new birds that will eventually make the BBC news. Admittedly most are cryptic splits and not of the same magnitude of interest of your baldbuls, but some are genuinely exciting BSc species-level that were previous unknown full-stop. We live now in an age of discovery comparable in many ways to that experienced by our ornithological forbears at the turn of the 20th century, a new understanding of vocalisations and use of molecular genetic information is unleashing a taxonomic rehash that will eventually add hundreds if not thousands of new birds to the global list.

So why don't we hear about this all the time? Well, the world is desperately short of skilled taxonomists, its no longer a sexy line of work for biologists, and there are fewer and fewer taxonomists trained every year. The situation is far more desperate for taxa that aren't higher vertebrates. Furthermore, the people involved in discovering and naming new bird species tend to be the same folk that are at the forefront of conservation research. They tend to be very busy. Preserving ecosystems intact is typically a higher priority than describing the species within them. In comparison with the Neotropics, where research is much better funded, the situation is rather different in Asia where far fewer ornithologists are massively overstretched trying to assess avian species limits.

It shouldn't therefore come as a surprise that this bird has taken a long time to be described. Until we read the paper in Forktail however we do not know what the situation surrounding the discovery was, it is not to say that someone was ignoring them all this time, they could have been lost and found again. Delays might have been precipitated by issues with collecting permits, access difficulties, time or financial constraints. This is speculative, but you can't describe anything overnight, the peer-review process itself can take years.

I'll reserve judgement on why news of this bird was withheld until I read the paper, I would be surprised if there were not a valid reason. All the information we have, you have provided. Some people might be surprised that there is a need for a Code of Ethics (http://www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp?booksection=appendixA&nfv=)dealing with descriptions of new species, that one exists should suggest to you that some people may be prepared to 'steal' other people's discoveries. Likewise I appreciate how all this might upset you, you deserve some credit for independently finding the birds. I'm surprised that you did not team up with the OBC guys to use your images and your story. Instead, you accuse the finders of seeking "all the credit and recognition and publicity". From where I’m sitting and from the information that you have provided you appear in fact to have undermined the work of an international conservation NGO. Are you proud of that? You do not appear to have


shown full respect in my article to the original finders of the bird and the describers (scientists?) of the species!

as I do not see anyone credited on your website apart from yourself, to which you refer in the third person. If you are so concerned about people seeing the birds then why have you not revealed the location where you discovered the birds? I hope you don't have any vested interests, why are you so angry about the whole affair?

Anyway, I look forward to hearing about this amazing discovery, and the circumstances surrounding it in Forktail when its published.

Congratulations again.

cheers

Alex

[Stijn]

Hello Alex,

If your first post was just only to comment on what Andre wrote between brackets, ok. You didn’t copied just this in the quote so it seemed you were desperate to explain people why a description takes so long. Again in your new post.

So, I ‘had’ to write I do have all respect for a description to take a long time.

Your last paragraph;

Well, I’ve been in contact with the people involved with the description, publication etc. All I got really was some people that wanted my article to disappear (made it disappear deleting the post) for reasons that, up to now, I’ve seen as ‘scientists’ problems, not mine, neither the public. Because, up to this date, I have never been given any information by them. I don’t know a thing about what they’re up to, I don’t know anything more about the birds than what is in my article, I don’t know of any valid reason to keep the bird secret, I don’t know who actually has found the birds originally, I don’t know who exactly has been describing the species, I have never been made aware that I might undermine conservation work, I still believe it’s time for Laos to be on the birding-ecotourism map and I’ll make up for whatever I’ve undermined this way, I have never been given any guarantees on proper credit for my article when taken off the web, I did nothing wrong. And I have showed every respect, and have been willing to take the article down if only they had given me some decent information and guarantees for some proper credit. Everything has been a secret.

So, how exactly do you think I can credit anyone in my article? I do not have a single name!

Why not put into question the ‘international conservation NGO’ for once? They might, as well as everyone else, make a mistake and perhaps not always use in the best possible way the money that has been donated to them. Sure though, they have only good intensions, as well as I have them.

To supply the world with an exact location would not really be a smart idea before the publication in Forktail. You understand that, you actually wrote it. I had expected a number of people to ask me about the exact spot, but you’re the first one to make a comment. I guess everyone did understand I can’t put the location on as for now. Why your comment?

I found the birds, it’s hard for me to put my grandmothers name in the article eh! I hope this explains why my name is on.

I made the terrible mistake to discover a new species…

[AndyB]

Hi Stijn, looks like Iain Woxvold of the University of Melbourne and Will Duckworth of the Wildlife Conservation Society are going public with the find, although they say they discovered it in Dec 2008, which is when your sightings took place...

http://cs.birdersworld.com/brdcs/blogs/field_of_view/2009/07/29/bald-songbird-discovered.aspx

[Brian S]

Andy

A detailed paper is here http://www.orientalbirdclub.org/news/WoxvoldDuckworthTimmins-Bulbul.pdf, and here
http://www.orientalbirdclub.org/news/BulbulNewsRelease.pdf

First seen in 1995, then further observations in Nov and Dec 2008.

Brian S

[_stijn_]

For reasons; The press release is out weeks before the planned date. The Forktail pdf paper is on weeks before the printed version will dispatch. Nothing important or bad. It is nice to see though that it is now available to see for all, not just paying members, only due to my article having been on the internet. Forktail papers appear online normally only 2 years after the printed version.

It is particularly nice to see that some deny the existence of my article and therefore also my person…
It’s hard to reprint a paper, as my article came at an unfortunate moment for them, but a few lines on an online pdf or in a press release…
And oh yes, so far, none of those that I have been in contact with regarding the Bulbuls, to let me know the thing got released now. As obviously, I do not exist. A friend called me up.

Anyhow; I don’t feel angry, I’m not so important. This was totally expected to happen. It’s happened before to independent birders and it will happen again. It is just funny to see those scientists so busy with their thing. Too busy really as one of them did admit they ignored the 1995 and 2000 sightings and the possible/likely new species due to a lack of time. Acceptable, sure enough. To ask help doesn’t harm really…

It is possibly useful to underline again some of my findings, incl. some highlighted in my article (http://www.birding2asia.com/articles/LaosMysteryBulbul.html). Because they do not appear in the scientific paper which now just seems to be incomprehensive.

-They have no clue on food use of the birds. See my photo of the Bulbul sitting on a branch with berries that I saw it feeding on. Highlighted in my article.
-I seem to have the only photos taken in the field. Important ones that show posture, behaviour, use of perches, habitat etc.
-Not posted yet but I will put up some better habitat pictures, I find the one in Forktail very poor (with the birder walking down) as it does not show any vegetation really, just a close up view of some black rocks.
-They make several guesses of the ‘northern’ birds (1995+2000+my record) features. I have facts. My birds for example have no red bare skin behind the eye (above eye-line) and nothing red on the crown , it is greyish-blue, the same colour that surrounds the eye. It’s gone make for a nice subspecies…see.
-They got the habitat fairly well (I did) but nothing definite really on range and distribution. Just assumptions only. My contribution anyone? In addition, the birds got seen (almost sure) by Albert Noorlander well north of Vang Viang back in August 2007, well north of anything the scientists knew about. Albert recognised the Bulbuls from my photos and I want to congratulate him with his find, well done.

Stijn

[forktail]

Stijn

It may be worth contacting OBC and discussing your photos etc. From my time at OBC, I imagine the editorial committee would be more than pleased to recieve your excellent photographs of this remarkable bird. I'm sure there will be something on these birds in Birding Asia, (the other OBC publication) where you could be fully credited - or even contribute a small article yourself. Certainly worth discussing with them?

F.

[James Eaton]

Stijn,

Firstly, well done on your discovery, it must have been a very exciting moment for you!

It is nice to read the manuscript on the birds description and get the full facts, hopefully this will stop the wild accusations, especially the amusing way the bird got found - I can imagine Rob Timmins got plenty of stick about seeing a bald bulbul back in '95! Also that the birds only really came to the attention of the describers last year and not 11 years ago as has got constantly banded about I'm sure several species have been glimpsed several years before being described, I can think of a couple – including Bugun Liocichla and even the White-faced Plover was seen and noted many years before they came to the forefront of the birding world last year.

It is disappointing to see negative comments written about certain people especially when you look at the background of these guys – they are not scientists first and foremost but conservationists and birders and have done so much for the flora and fauna of Indochina as a whole (especially Laos and Myanmar) over the past 15-20 years and most importantly documented their findings in several journals over the years. They have set up national parks, wrote conservation action plans, attempted to save many other species and often spend long periods in the field.

I found this sentence from a message earlier in the thread;
'The birds, whatever they are (I don’t care so much after all), should not have been kept a secret for 11 years. If I may put a suggestion here; they could have come up with some kind of pre-release and stick a name on it, rather than seek all the credit and recognition and publicity that will be on next month. Perhaps the original finder should be ashamed instead of proud. But again, I’ve shown all respect in my article and I’m sorry to let go of some thoughts here.
If the Bulbul guys had been smart enough to let the world know, they should have got full support and lots of funding…a missed opportunity. '

I think they are very smart people judging by their previous successes and have certainly not missed any opportunity, I think we should look at the picture as a whole before making such comments.
Conservation and funding thrives on publicity and the bigger the bang the more the world stands up and takes note rather than a softly-softly approach.

' It is nice to see though that it is now available to see for all, not just paying members, only due to my article having been on the internet. Forktail papers appear online normally only 2 years after the printed version. '

It is only £15 a year – OBC do not make a profit out of this, they need to cover printing costs – is it that much to ask to join such a worthy charity, especially for those that spend so much time in the Orient and go to places like Khao Nor Chuchi for Gurney's Pitta? This place wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for the large amounts of money and time invested by the Oriental Bird Club.

With all the information and photographs you have compiled from your range of sightings it would be nice if you could write up a follow-up to the excellent, original manuscript pointing out the behaviour and habitat preferences you have found. Once it has been accepted to a journal then they could use your information in drawing up an action plan for the species.

Though it's 'just' an ugly bulbul it is an amazing discovery, that something like this could go missing for so long, especially that it has not been found in the annamites bordering Vietnam to the north or north-east Cambodia. We still live in exciting times...

James

James Eaton

[Melly42]

Does this bird qualify for an endangered status (according to the BLI guidelines)?

[Alex Lees]

My comments allude to my own experience in the Amazon basin, I have had the good fortune to see several undescribed bird species, some of these now have names, others don't yet.

On the off-chance that anyone is interested, another one of these now has a name:

Phaethornis aethopyga Zimmer, 1950 Tapajós Hermit

see Piacentini et al. (2009: attached)

[gandytron]

on my blog...http://electricbirding.blogspot.com/

[Alex Lees]

on my blog...http://electricbirding.blogspot.com/

Great pics.

Forgot to mention that in the same issue of the Auk with the Phaethornis above in, there is a description of another new species - Rio Orinoco Spinetail Synallaxis beverlyae. Anyone interested in a PDF can pm me.

[Brian S]

James Eaton has posted a great recent image of a Bare-faced Bulbul on the rare birds gallery http://www.surfbirds.com/media/gallery_photos/20100105032716.jpg

Brian S

[_stijn_]

http://www.birding2asia.com/W2W/Laos/NaHin.html