There have been rumours of an owl... but it hasn't been seen in 155 years

December 17, 2021 1:58 PM

The Search for Lost Birds, launched today, focuses exclusively on rediscovering birds that have become enigmas (no documented sightings in 10+ years) in ornithology. It is a sub-project of the Search for Lost Species project. And these projects work, not only to track down species like the black-browed babbler in Borneo (not documented for 180+ years), but also to find and document new species and raise awareness to conserve their habitats.
posted by jessamyn (11 comments total)

This is relevant to my interests! I've been working on making machine learning audio classification of birdsong better and easier, and my next big push is going to be on building out tools for finding vocalizations from birds where we have very few examples. Thanks for the post!
posted by kaibutsu at 2:29 PM on December 17, 2021 [7 favorites]

I spotted an extinct bird in a mating ritual, in a canyon right behind the Utah State capitol. The canyon interconnects with a couple of others, one of which is off limits, and was the water source for Fort Douglas. Then I saw it again near the back germinus of the closed canyon, in a place callex Affleck Park. The fed I approached about this in a Friends Of Great Salt Lake meeting, had no interest. So Barney's Hollow-Affleck Park-Red Butte-Behind Research Park-possibly into Emigration Canyon. No interest, no where. Looms like a sage hen, a grouse, but makes a column of feathers on the top of it's head maybe 1.75" in diameter by 2.5 " tall. It is white in the winter, brown in May when it dances at Barney's Hollow, off to the south of the City Creek Road.
posted by Oyéah at 3:21 PM on December 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

I always have an eye out for the St. Martin Skink, but I haven’t seen it yet. I didn’t see the St. Kitts Bullfinch on the list, though.
posted by snofoam at 3:30 PM on December 17, 2021

Metafilter: There have been rumours of an owl
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:11 PM on December 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

This relevant to my interests!

Because I LOVE BIRDS!
posted by Splunge at 4:48 PM on December 17, 2021 [6 favorites]

Seeing a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers for the first time was like seeing two ghosts for me -- and on a telephone pole on a corner a half block from my door at that. Well, I didn't know from pileated woodpeckers then but man, they were bigger than crows. I was astounded.
posted by y2karl at 7:55 PM on December 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

Please please, South Island Kokako. That would be so great. The search has been going on a while but so far the South Island Kokako spottings seem false positives with Tui covered in pollen being the likely targets which is just so like the fractious Tui.
Here's the one we can still hear for now North Island Kokako.
posted by Richard Upton Pickman at 11:02 PM on December 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

"Black-Browed Babbler In Borneo" is my favorite Hoagy Carmichael song ...
posted by Brachinus at 6:43 AM on December 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing this.
posted by gingerbeer at 9:39 AM on December 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Please please, South Island Kokako. That would be so great.

Wow that website is really rich and interesting thanks for sharing it. The calls of the North Island Kokako are so unlike anything around here.

I just got back from walking six snowy miles doing Christmas Bird Count things, not a bad year for it. Saw ten different species (maybe, sun hasn't set yet) the back of an owl I could definitely not identify, and saw a few little flocks of various things which is always cheering. Some bird counts I walk for hours and see like three chickadees.
posted by jessamyn at 12:27 PM on December 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I had a lovely first time out for the Christmas Bird Count last Sunday. We were definitely the 'willing to hike' group; covered about 8 miles of trails in the Oakland hills in about seven hours of actual birding. Breaking 1 MPH is basically a sprint compared to other group birding excursions I've been on. It's California, so we still have LOTS of species around, and the hills even get a few species which typically show up at higher elevations - the big win of the day was a Townsend's Solitaire. It's still "winter", though, so identification is like 90% by calls rather than by song. Luckily we had an ecology postdoc and a long-time professional conservationist in our group to help sort out the calls; it was very educational!
posted by kaibutsu at 9:43 AM on December 22, 2021 [2 favorites]