High Up in the Borneo Canopy, a Likely New Bird Species Lurks

The Spectacled Flowerpecker has been eluding experts for nearly a decade. Now, scientists have a bold new plan to reveal its true identity.

Deep within the tropical rainforest of in Brunei, a picturesque footbridge weaves through the towering ficus. At more than 130 feet high, the Belalong Canopy Walkway is one of the tallest treetop paths found on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo.

It鈥檚 this walkway that Hanyrol H. Ahmad Sah visits every couple of days, bringing tourists from the nearby ecotourism lodge where she works as the resident researcher. Up in the canopy, Sah keeps a keen eye out for hornbills, gibbons, and other creatures. But she also stays alert for something smaller: ripe mistletoe berries, harbingers of an elusive canopy visitor, the Spectacled Flowerpecker.

The four-inch-long gray birds, so named for their broken white eye-ring, are believed to be a new species in the flowerpecker family鈥攁 passerine group found across South Asia to Australia. If officially confirmed, the species would become Borneo鈥檚 thirteenth native flowerpecker. It would also be the newest addition to the island's avian list in decades.

The Spectacled Flowerpecker was first spotted by American tour guide Richard E. Webster in 2009 on the eastern end of Borneo in Sabah, Malaysia. Since then, it鈥檚 been sighted just a handful of times.

鈥淣ot many people have spotted it, not even the top birders in the world,鈥 Sah says. The flowerpecker has been recorded most frequently鈥攁nd most recently, 鈥攁t Belalong, which is why Sah and ecologist Ulmar Grafe are targeting the walkway as they strategize how to prove the bird鈥檚 uniqueness.

Borneo, the third largest island in the world, cedes land to three countries: Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It's a biodiversity hotspot boasting more than 650 bird species.

鈥淲e have an opportunity to not only catch the bird, but for the first time, describe it scientifically,鈥 says Grafe, who works with the Universiti Brunei Darussalam, where he was Sah鈥檚 professor. 鈥淲e鈥檙e ready to do it, and we鈥檙e very eager to do it.鈥

The Spectacled Flowerpecker was originally brought to light in , which documents at least two individuals feeding on mistletoe berries from a canopy tower in Sabah鈥檚 Danum Valley. After consulting museum collections in London and the United States and conferring with ornithologists specializing in Bornean birds, the authors were convinced that the bird with the curious eye-ring, white throat-to-belly streak, and  was a new species.

Study author David Edwards, a conservation scientist from the University of Sheffield, then gave the bird a common name鈥攂ut stopped short of giving it a scientific one. Without morphological measurements, blood samples, and genetic information, a new species can鈥檛 formally be entered into the  records, he says. Photographs and sound recordings, which are what鈥檚 currently available for the flowerpecker, are deemed insufficient; to draw more intrinsic data, one needs to capture a field specimen. Analyzing the DNA, Edwards adds, will also help rule out the possibility of hybrids (not considered a new species) and nail down the genus.

A key reason the Spectacled Flowerpecker remains so elusive is because 鈥渋t鈥檚 a very low-density species . . . with a strong element of nomadism,鈥 Edwards, who isn鈥檛 involved in the Bruneian study, explains. The birds are thought to be mistletoe specialists, traversing the vast rainforest in search of ripe berries.

Another reason is that the birds are believed to inhabit only the upper layers of the canopy. 鈥淲hen you鈥檙e standing on the floor, staring 40 to 50 meters up and it鈥檚 backlit, and you鈥檙e looking for a bird that鈥檚 10 centimeters big and there鈥檚 so much obscuring vegetation . . . it鈥檚 really difficult,鈥 Edwards says.

But the Belalong walkway gives Grafe and his team unfettered access to the bird鈥檚 lofty habitat鈥攁nd even above it. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a unique opportunity not seen elsewhere in Borneo to describe the animals that live in the canopy of these forests,鈥 Grafe says. His team has figured out how to 鈥渓aunch [a] mist net into the flight path of the flowerpecker as it approaches its favorite fruit鈥 by using steel cables, pulleys, poles and PVC pipes, all suspended from the walkway.

This acrobatic setup leaves little room for mistiming and error. So, to prepare, Sah has spent most days monitoring the clumps of mistletoe that grow parasitically on the dipterocarp trees along the walkway. When the oval berries ripen to a rosy red hue, there鈥檚 a good chance the Spectacled Flowerpeckers will return.

The plan is that once Sah spots a feeding flowerpecker, she鈥檒l alert Grafe, who will make the three-hour drive from his base in town to the rainforest. The pair will set up the mist net by dawn the next morning and then, lie in wait for an unsuspecting bird. 鈥淲e will just net it, take measurements, collect the data, and see if that鈥檚 enough to convince people it鈥檚 a new species without having a specimen in hand,鈥 Grafe says.

Traditionally, scientists would then euthanize the specimen to study it further. But in recent years, the zoological world has witnessed a divide of sorts; modernists suggest that exceptions should be made when the species in question is exceedingly rare. 鈥淭hat's one of the reasons why I'm reluctant to sacrifice the bird,鈥 Grafe says. 鈥淲e have no information about its ecology.鈥

If the stars align and Grafe and Sah do succeed in netting the flowerpecker, the impact could be enormous. 鈥淔or Brunei it鈥檚 a big thing because we don鈥檛 have special birds to attract birdwatchers around the world,鈥 Sah says. Those coming to Borneo generally bypass Brunei in favor of Sabah, which offers greater biodiversity and better tourist facilities. But a unique new species could help change things for Brunei.

It鈥檚 also crucial to highlight the spectacular nature of Borneo鈥檚 rainforests, so they can be explored and preserved further, Grafe says. As the discovery of the Spectacled Flowerpecker shows, 鈥淸the canopy鈥檚] still this new frontier of biology; it鈥檚 like a new planet out there that we need to continue to look at.鈥

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