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Mittwoch, 17. Oktober 2018

Very rare mammals in Germany - Part I. Mainland mammals and bats

In late September 2015 a Sowerby's Beaked Whale was found in the German Baltic Sea, showing very nicely, keeping close to the shore and often leaping out of the water. When German birders heard of it, some decided to twitch this animal. Surely, if there had been some kind of mammal rankings - as they exist by the hundreds for birds - this species had to be an absolute blocker, even for world listers. Very few people have ever laid eyes on one of these enigmatic and rare creatures. Even Jon Hall, who has seen several thousand species of mammals and can be called the father of something called "mammalwatching", a movement quite similar to birding, hasn't seen this species yet during his hundreds of trips.

Less than a year later the German Club300 published the first complete lists of mammal species in Germany and in the Western Palaearctic. The interest in these lists and the associated rankings was big. Many discussions arose, but it was obvious that the normally so well informed birding community lacked knowledge about rarer mammals. There were questions about taxonomy (is Moufflon a true species?), status (is the population of Eastern Chipmunk self-sustaining?), occurrence (does Northern White-breasted Hedgehog really reach Germany?), etc.
Unfortunately, only few people could join the discussions as knowledge about mammals and their occurrence was very limited and information about them sparse and scattered throughout the internet.
Unlike with birds, there are no rarity committees, there's no big mammal watching community in Germany yet and identification difficulties plus the hidden nature of most species make it unlikely to stumble upon rare mammals by chance.
Nevertheless, it's astonishing to see how many vagrant mammals have already reached Germany, especially given the fact that most mammals travel much shorter distances (if at all) than migratory birds and have more trouble to cross barriers, such as rivers, mountains and seas.

Here, I try to summarize all observations of rare and very rare mammals in Germany. By this, I mean species that do not normally reproduce in or routinely migrate through Germany or its adjacent waters. I have furthermore included species that have only recently gone extinct in Germany and some very range-restricted introduced species. For many species the data will not be complete as information is often outdated, incomplete and hard to find.
The Club300 list currently lists 124 species for Germany, but misses a species (European Bison) and includes two that have possibly not yet been safely recorded in Germany (Northern White-breasted Hedgehog, Monticelli's Myotis).

I hope to spark some debate in the scientific and mammalwatching communities in Europe, that could help with digging up further information on rare mammals in Germany and elsewhere. I encourage everybody to do the same for other countries and thus further help the understanding and knowledge we have of these species today. I will update this post whenever I receive new information.

Red-necked Wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus)
Category E - introduced
Several Wallabies of the tasmanian subspecies rufogriseus were forcefully set free from a petting zoo on March 7th 2001 in Burg Stargard in northeastern Germany. Eventhough 7 of them were successfully returned, one male and two females managed to avoid recapture and have formed a small population of free-roaming kangaroos in Germany. There have been previous introduction attempts with kangaroos being introduced in Hesse between 1850 and 1920 on the Rhine island Kühkopf (and occurring until 1945), in 1887 near Bonn (North Rhine-Westphalia) and in 1889 in Altdöbern (Brandenburg). An individual of the Altdöbern population even reached Saxony in 1896. The animals started to reproduce but were eventually all poached or shot by hunters who thought they didn't belong in this environment. Wild populations of Wallabies in France and the UK show that they can survive in our latitudes. Occasional escapees are reported throughout the country, e.g. in Baden-Württemberg, Lower-Saxony, Saarland, Saxony, Thuringia, etc.


European Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus citellus)
Category A - extinct in Germany, currently being reintroduced
The northernmost population of European Ground Squirrels in the world lived in the eastern Erz Mountains in Saxony. Unfortunately it went extinct due to changes in agriculture between the 1960s and 80s.
Since 2006 a project tries to reintroduce Ground Squirrels near Geising, however this project is still far away from succeeding.

Siberian Chipmunk (Tamias sibiricus)
Siberian Chipmunk in Aschaffenburg (Bavaria, 2016)  
© Martin Gottschling
Category C - introduced
Several small populations existed in many places, e.g. in Freiburg/Breisgau (1969-2005), Ingolstadt (1990s), Wuppertal (1990s-2000s), Münster (1970s-late 80s), Essen (1965-present), Remagen (2000s-present) and Aschaffenburg (1990s-present). Some of these existed for many years and the animals were quite numerous (e.g. around 200 animals on the Lauheide graveyard near Münster), all but the one in Aschaffenburg (Park Schöntal) and in Remagen (Wildpark Rolandseck) have now perhaps disappeared. The population in Aschaffenburg supposedly numbered 70-90 individuals in the mid 2000s but is believed to be declining. Information is very thin, but there are probably also still Chipmunks in Essen (Heissiwald). Occasionally escaped pets are reported throughout Germany, e.g. in Saxony.

Eastern Chipmunk in Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia,
2016)  © Martin Gottschling
Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus)
Category E - introduced
On June 17th 1963 eight Eastern Chipmunks were released into the zoo of Wuppertal and their ancestors roam freely ever since. Eventhough enough years have passed for this species to be included in category C, the Chipmunks still rely on visitors feeding them nuts and the protection against predators (such as cats) from the zoo it might be more sensible to keep this species in category E.

Forest Dormouse (Dryomys nitedula)
Category A - very rare resident - 10 records
This species has only been recorded in the valleys of Isar and Inn in Bavaria in the southernmost regions of Germany. All but one belonged to the subspecies intermedius.
  • 1955, county Freyung-Grafenau (ssp. carpathicus)
  • 4x 1968 and older, twice county Rosenheim, once Bad-Tölz,-Wolfratshausen once Berchtesgardener Land
  • 3x 1985/1986, Inn valley near Oberaudorf and Nußdorf (Rosenheim): found in nesting boxes
  • 1993, north of Eibsee (Garmisch-Partenkirchen): found dead on street
  • 2010, Brannenburg (Rosenheim): Female with youngsters in nesting box
Bavarian Pine Vole in Brandenberger Alpen
(Tirol/Austria, 2017)  © factcatdog
Bavarian Pine Vole (Microtus bavaricus)
Category A - extinct in Germany - last and only record 1962
This species was only discovered and described in 1962, when 23 animals were caught in mousetraps near Garmisch-Partenkirchen. After this, the species could never be refound in Germany and the original discovery site has been covered by a hospital. The only remaining population that has been found of this species lies in Tirol/Austria, but is under severe threat of extinction due to changes in the agricultural use. The search for further populations continues.

Northern White-breasted (Eastern) Hedgehog (Erinaceus roumanicus)
Possibly not yet recorded in Germany, maybe category B
This species is listed on the Club300 species list, due to the IUCN map showing an occurrence of this species in easternmost Germany. However, I believe this map is not entirely exact. In the german red list (2009) the following is stated (translated):
"The species currently does not occur in Germany. If the species has ever occurred in Germany remains questionable. Possibly, the existing records belong to displaced or imported and not to autochthonous individuals." 
In the mammal atlas of Saxony the following can be found:
"Due to a publication by HERTER (1934) it was long assumed that the entire eastern German border region was being inhabitated by E. roumanicus. Only for Brandenburg (Oderbruch, Hasenfelde near Lebus, and Berlin) could a revision of material in scientific collections confirm a presence (ANSORGE 1987b). All specimens originate from earlier than 1945, and at least for the record from Berlin a human-induced displacement is assumed."
In the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern red list old records from Usedom are mentioned.
Due to these uncertainties, I would currently suggest to delete this species from the German list. The possibility of this species occurring in Germany is however definitely existing, given how extremely close it occurs to the German border in Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland (in some places less than 15km).

European Free-tailed Bat (Tadarida teniotis)
Free-tailed Bat found in Kumhausen (Bavaria, 2014)   
© Christian Winkler
Category A - Very rare vagrant - at least 2 records
Two definitive records could be found from southern Germany, but indications for another male, also from Landshut, being rehabbed, and a record from Stuttgart (Dietz & Kiefer 2014) were found.
Giant Noctule (Nyctalus lasiopterus)
Category A - Very rare vagrant - 2 records
The Giant Noctule has only be recorded twice in Germany. Other claims have been shown to refer to other species (Dietz & Kiefer 2014).
Savi's Pipistrelle (Hypsugo savii)
Category A - rare visitor to Germany - over 11 records
This species was possibly once widespread in the Bavarian Forest, but went extinct in 1951. Luckily, records of Savi's Pipistrelle are becoming more frequent in recent years and several acoustic records leave hope that this species might be on the return to Germany. Most animals far north of the normal range are believed to have travelled as stow away with cargo. Vagrants or human-assisted bats have been reported e.g. from Scotland, London and Jersey. With recent developments it seems likely that Germany could soon be recolonized.
Monticelli's Myotis (Myotis oxygnathus)
Not yet safely recorded from Germany - Possibly category A
An animal caught in Entringen (Tübingen) showed measurements that lie within the overlap region with Greater Mouse-eared Bat (Myotis myotis). Genetics apparently don't help with identification, so that this record can't be safely assigned to Monticelli's Myotis, even though general impression of size and structure strongly points towards this identification. Another claim from Hochstädt/Aisch (Erlangen-Höchstädt) from 1994 needs to be investigated further, but possibly refers to another species (e.g. Lesser Horseshoe Bat?).

Schreiber's Long-fingered Bat in Kiel (2012)  
© Karl Kugelschreiber
Schreiber's Long-fingered Bat (Miniopterus schreibersii)
Category A - Extinct in Germany, very rare vagrant - 3 records since extinction
This species might have once been part of the German fauna but apart from a nursery roost in 1890 and a colony that existed from at least 1951 to 1960 nothing was found. While numbers of up to 500 individuals were counted in the first two years in Sasbach, the colony began to shrink in following years and eventually the species went extinct in Germany.
Golden Jackal (Canis aureus)
Category A - Rare vagrant - at least 12 records
This species lives in southeastern Europe and was recorded for the first time in Germany in the late 90s. Since then several more jackals have been recorded through very different techniques. Jackals seem to stray very far on occasion as is shown by recent observations in the Baltic countries, Poland, Denmark or in the Netherlands. The current records are concentrated in eastern Germany, where it seems possible that Jackals might become resident.
The track of Bruno/JJ1 along the German-Austrian border.
© Stefan-Xp
Brown Bear (Ursus arctos)
Category A - Extinct in Germany, very rare vagrant - 1 modern-time record
Bears used to roam through most of Germany many hundred years ago, but became more and more rare due to enormous hunting pressure. The last one was supposedly shot 1835 in southern Bavaria (Ruhpolding). In 2006 a bear from northern Italy was finally observed for two months along the Bavarian-Austrian border, the first one in Germany since 170 years. It's official name was JJ1, but it was dubbed "Bruno" by the media, which gave the Bear great coverage. It was born in 2004, from two Slovenian bears, that had been transferred to Italy to save a dwindling population near Adamello-Brenta. Due to the bear sometimes approaching human settlements and occasionally feeding on livestock and propelled by the media, the fear of some humans eventually became so big that it was decided the bear had to be removed. Initially, the shooting of the bear was allowed, but because of a public outcry this permission was withdrawn. The attempt to catch the bear alive went fruitless for three weeks, before the bear was eventually shot after all on 26. June near Spitzingsee
  • 20.5.-26.6.2006, wandering along Bavarian-Austrian border, constantly switching sides, 2 years old, from Italy, shot on 26.6.06 near Spitzingsee (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, Miesbach, Rosenheim)
European Mink (Mustela lutreola)
Category B - Extinct in Germany, currently being reintroduced - Last record possibly 1925
The European Mink went extinct in most of Europe due to high hunting pressure for its fur, destruction of habitat and competition with the introduced American Mink (Neovison vison). The last Mink in Germany was shot 1925 in the Aller valley in Lower-Saxony. Reintroduction schemes exist near Osnabrück (2000-2009), in Saarland (since 2006) and in Nature Park Steinhuder Meer near Hannover (since 2010). All of these projects have generated at least some reproduction success.

Eurasian Elk in Görlitz (Saxony, 2015) © Steve Klasan
Eurasian Elk (Moose) (Alces alces)
Category A - rare resident in Germany
Elks used to occur throughout Germany hundreds of years ago, but went extinct due to hunting pressure and habitat destruction. Unknown to most, Elks have now returned and have already become regular part of the German mammal fauna. They occur in the easternmost regions of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg and Saxony. Some individuals sometimes stray further west and have been observed in North Rhine-Westfalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hessen and Bavaria.
There have been over 50 recent-time records from Saxony alone, including one mother and her calf in 1994/95. For Mecklenburg-Vorpommern a near constant prensence is assumed, this hypothesis is supported e.g. by 6 Elks that were shot in 1986 near Neubrandenburg alone. In Brandenburg 20 to 50 observations per year are reported, several Elks have become victims of collisions with cars.
Most, if not all (except maybe the calfs in 1994/95 and 2008) of these animals are believed to be immigrants from Poland and the Czech Republic, where numbers are thriving.

European Bison (Bos bonasus)
Category A - Extinct in Germany, very rare vagrant, currently being reintroduced - 1 modern-time record
Germany used to be entirely part of the European Bisons natural range until several centuries ago. However, the species faded away under an enormous hunting pressure. The last free-roaming Bison was shot in 1927 in the Caucasus. When the last one was shot in Germany isn't entirely clear. Fortunately, some Bisons survived in captivity and a reproduction scheme was put in place. The Bison population has since grown to around 3000 free-living animals (all descending from just 12 individuals!). A great part of the population currently lives in Poland, from where a Bison originated, that roamed peacefully through western Poland. On September 13th 2017 it was discovered near Lebus in Brandenburg, apparently just having crossed the River Oder. Here, it was shot by two hunters just two hours after the discovery, after they had insinuated a danger for humans and thus gotten the permission to kill it.
Since 2013 European Bisons are being reintroduced in the Rothaargebirge, where eight animals were initially released. Currently more than 23 European Bisons are roaming freely through Germany. Further Bisons live under almost wild conditions in a 2000 ha enclosure in the Döberitzer Heide near Berlin and in Siegen-Wittgenstein (North Rhine-Westphalia).
For more comfortable reading I have split this article into two parts. This part I only deals with mainland mammals and bat. Part II (Marine mammals) will soon be added.

Acknowledgements:
I'd like to thank everyone involved in compiling the above information and those who kindly provided the pictures, in particular Martin Gottschling, Steve Klasan, Karl Kugelschafter, Christian Dietz, Christian Winkler and the Club300.de-team
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Montag, 5. Februar 2018

The boundaries of the Western Palearctic and the Greater Western Palearctic

Many birders like to keep lists. Some have a list for anything. There's the basic stuff, like county, national, world or year lists, there's the more unusual stuff, like pee, touch or even eat lists. One of these lists, that many birders in Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East keep is the Western Palearctic (WP) list. 
And even though most have a general idea of the region, there's often confusion about the regional boundaries to the WP. Maps showing the boundaries on the internet are often blurry or incomplete, therefore I created these three maps in QGIS (v2.18.15) to make for an easy visualisation.

The first map shows the usual and long-established boundaries of the WP used by most authorities and birding websites. These boundaries were defined by Cramp (1977) and published in the 'Birds of the Western Palearctic' series (BWP).*
The Western Palearctic sensu Cramp (1977).

The second map shows the new approach to define the region. The definition used for this map stems from Mitchell (2017) from 'Birds of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. An Annotated Checklist'. A mostly similar definition will come in the 'Handbook of Western Palearctic birds' series by Shirihai and Svensson (forthcoming in 2018)
The Greater Western Palearctic sensu Mitchell (2017).
The third map compares both definitions. The 'GWP' includes all of the 'WP' plus the Arabian peninsula, Iran and some more of the Sahara.

A comparison of the two aforementioned definitions. The orange area shows what both have in common, the green color shows the additional area of the 'GWP'.
Here the definition for the Greater Western Palearctic (Mitchell 2017), with some comments:
"The northern boundary extends into the high Arctic to 82°N, to include Novaya Zemlya, all of Franz Josef Land and Svalbard, then west to 10°W and south to the Arctic Circle, so excluding Greenland but including Jan Mayen. It follows the Arctic Circle west across northern Iceland, extending north slightly to include Icelandic territorial waters (12 nautical miles from shore), then at 30°W turns south to the Azores, with a minor westward extension to include Corvo, Flores and surrounding territorial waters in that archipelago, before continuing south along 30°W. At 14°N, the boundary runs south of and thus includes the Cape Verde Islands, before heading north at 20°W and then east again at 19°N to the Mauritanian coast. To the north, the islands of the Banc D'Arguin fall within the region but the adjacent mainland coast does not, the boundary lying on the low tide midpoint between the two. From the Mauritanian coast, the boundary runs inland east at 20°N through the southern Sahara to northern Chad, thereby including the Hoggar, but not the extreme south of Algeria nor the Aïr Massif in north-west Niger. Between 16° and 20°E in northern Chad the boundary runs farther south at 18°N to include the Tibesti but not the Ennedi, then east at 20°N again to the Egyptian border. The regional boundary follows this border east along 22°N as far as Gebel Elba, where at about 34°E it moves north-east, thus excluding this Sudan-administered Egyptian territory, and reaches the Red Sea at about 22°N (sic!). All of the Arabian Peninsula is included within the region, as is all of Iran. The eastern border of this region extends into the north from the Kara Sea east of Novaya Zemlya, the north-eastern tip of which represents the most easterly point of Europe, south along the Ural ridge (following administrative boundaries) to 58°30'N, thence by an arbitrary straight line to a point 50 km east of Yekaterinburg, and by another arbitrary straight line to the head waters of the Ural River south of Zlatoust., and then south along the Ural River to the Caspian Sea, the boundary continues south along a theoretical meandering line midway between the west and east shores until it meets the Iranian border with Turkmenistan to the south-east."
This definition seems exhaustive and precise at first glance and is probably much more precise than the definition by Cramp. However there is still some vagueness at some points, which I'll list below:
  • The westward extension around Corvo and Flores is not clearly defined. I suggest the following extension: 30°W 40°N -> 32°W 40°N -> 32°W 39°N -> 30°W 39°N
  • The map and the text in BENAME do not conform with each other at the Tibesti extension, as 16°E  lies slightly east of the Niger-Chadian border, which is used as a guide line in the map. I suggest to stick with the text definition.
  • It is unclear whether the boundaries follow the political boundaries or the 20°N latitude at lake Nasser, as Sudanese waters reach north of this latitude. I suggest to use the 20°N latitude.
  • There's a minor extension south of 20°N at Gebel Elba which is not accounted for in the text, but in the map in BENAME. I suggest this should be added to the definition.
  • There's a mistake in the text definition, after moving north-east along Gebel Elba. It should read "(...) reaches the Red Sea at 23°N" instead of 22°N
  • The oceanic boundaries around the Arabian peninsula are not clearly described. I suggest a meandering line between the east and west shores of the Red Sea south to ca. 43°50'E 12°30'N, then 12 nautical miles from the shore of the peninsula
  • The eastern boundary in Russia and Kazakhstan is depicted completely wrong in the map of BENAME. Neither does it follow the Ural River, nor the Ural ridge and even the dent around Yekaterinburg is depicted far to the west. 
There are three main differences between the WP and the GWP:
  • In the WP definition by Cramp the boundary along the Mauritanian coast runs north to 21°N (as opposed to 20°N) and then eastwards from there towards the Tibesti dent
  • The Arabian peninsula is largely excluded. Instead a straight line along the 28°N latitude cuts through Saudi Arabia
  • The south-eastern boundary used is not the eastern, but the western border of Iran and its neighboring countries

I hope this post can help clear most questions about the boundaries of the WP and the GWP. A commentary on the pros and cons of both defintions will soon follow.

*The boundaries in the Caspian Sea and in the ocean around Kuwait aren't clearly defined in BWP. I therefore assumed borders that are in fact non-existent. Furthermore the lines drawn in these regions aren't exact as drawing them would be a pain in the *** without any reference line I can follow. Sorry for that)
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Donnerstag, 1. Februar 2018

A commentary on the first attempt of a Big Year in the Western Palearctic region



A Big Year
 
The Big Year WP team - Mårten, Claes and Erik. © Big Year WP
In late September of 2016 exciting news got birders in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East talking: 3 Swedish guys would set out and try to see or hear as many bird species in the Western Palearctic (WP) and in one calendar year as possible, something called a Big Year. Big Years have been very popular in North America for decades, with contestants on an almost yearly basis, whose final scores are published by the American Birding Association (ABA). In North America clear rules and boundaries have been defined and the records are continuously being broken. There’s even a movie about this, loved by many birders around the globe, starring Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson. The current record holder in the ABA region is John Weigel, an Australian guy who managed to record a staggering 783 species in 2016 (835 species using the new ABA boundaries, which now include Hawaii). He outcompeted a few other Big Year birders by just a handful of birds. Interestingly he is also the record holder for Australia, where he observed 725 species in 2012.

In recent years the idea of Big Years has spread to other parts of the world. Thus more or less elaborate attempts have been made in a number of countries or regions. In 2015 and 2016 two birders separately attempted to do worldwide Big Years and both were very successful. The record set in 2015 by American birder Noah Strycker (6042 species) was immediately and impressively surpassed by Dutch birder Arjan Dwarshuis in 2016 (6852 species). While in the past Big Years were often done in secret to avoid competition, it is now becoming increasingly common for contenders to blog about their experiences and thus interact with the birding community, which usually follows these attempts with a mixture of awe and friendly jealousy. While every step is carefully monitored and mistakes are exposed mercilessly, this community also informs the Big Year birders about the latest rarity sightings and gives travel advices, information about recent developments in science or simply cheers for their idols to crush the old record.

A Big Year in the Western Palearctic seemed a likely scenario for the near future, but few people probably expected this was to happen in 2017 already. No previous attempts have been published anywhere, so there was no real target to surpass. In fact nobody really knew what number could be possible during a Big Year in the WP, so estimations varied from 600 to 800 species. 

I had been really intrigued by previous Big Years and the fact that I would know most of the birds this time got me really invested in this upcoming attempt, thus I started to inform myself. In January I estimated that they might record around 760 species. I deemed this to be a rather conservative guess, but most others believed this number was much too high. Now at the end of 2017 I know that I was right with both my assumptions: That they could get around 760 species and that this number was rather conservative. I actually believe that maybe one day a truly dedicated and deep-pocketed birder could reach 800 species during a Big Year in the WP. As I hope that many more attempts are to follow, let’s analyse this remarkable first attempt and make some predictions for future attempts.

The framework

The three Swedish birders Claes (Klacke) Wikström, Erik Rask and Mårten Wikström set out to observe as many species of birds as possible in the WP.
  • As a systematic basis they used the IOC taxonomy (after originally considering to use the taxonomy set by netfugl.dk),
  • The definition of the WP was taken from the Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP).
  • To record their observations they chose the IGoTerra App over much wider used sites such as ebird.org or observation.org.
  • Furthermore they added a rule that all three of them had to have seen or heard the species to be able to count them.
I believe using IOC as the taxonomic basis was the right thing to do. It’s one of the most widely used and accepted taxonomic lists used in birding circles and gets updated on a very regular basis. The netfugl list has many caveats: Many widely accepted splits and lumps aren’t implemented and some species are omitted entirely from the list. This, coupled with the small number of users and a rather non-transparent decision making makes it rather unsuited for a Big Year. In the ABA area the Clements taxonomy is used, but this is a more conservative approach. Personally I feel the IOC checklist with its quick and transparent decision making is the checklist of the future.

The Western Palearctic biogeographic region as defined by Cramp (1977) and used by the Big Year WP team
Several proposals have been made to divide the world in different biogeographic regions, based on species that are endemic to these regions and can be distinguished from other such regions. One of these regions is the Palearctic, which is furthermore divided into the western and the eastern Palearctic, roughly along the Ural ridge. The western Palearctic (WP) is usually defined as Europe, most of the Middle East and northern Africa, but more often than not it is impossible to draw clear lines where one region begins and the other starts, as birds (and other species) just don’t care about this theoretical construct. Therefore some political or geographic boundaries need to be used to define the WP. The boundaries used in BWP were defined in 1977, but have recently been challenged by some authors. A new definition has been proposed by D. Mitchell in Birds of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. A Checklist (BENAME). The current boundaries lie roughly along 21° N latitude in the Sahara, exclude most of the Arabian peninsula and head north at the Iraq-Iran boundary. The newly proposed boundaries run along 20° N, include the whole Arabian peninsula and Iran. Even though this new definition has its drawbacks, I suggest this should become the new definition to use, as I’ll outline in a different commentary. However this new definition was only just published in 2017, so it wasn’t available and popular among birders, when this Big Year started.
The choice to use the IGoTerra App was a surprising one. Previous attempts used either ebird.com or observado.org, to submit their sightings. Both of these are free to use and have apps that make it easy to both enter sightings in the field and later view the records. They actively decided against these options and explained this in their blog. However this decision has had its drawbacks and sparked some smaller controversies. The data accumulated in IGoTerra isn’t available to the general public and therefore can’t be filtered by non-members. Also during the year there were several issues with IGoTerra, where observations weren’t displayed, normally involving introduced species. Also the Big Year team started to record the mammals they saw, but unfortunately only did so very unfrequently and incompletely. It was not possible to see, which species these were. Even though IGoTerra might be a great choice for the ordinary birder, it doesn’t seem this was the right choice for someone who blogs about their sightings and wants others to have a look at the observations. 

It seemed like a bold statement at first that birds would only be counted if all three of them got onto them. But it became apparent soon enough that this wouldn't cost them many birds (or in fact any birds at all). During the first half of the year only a few scarce and shy migrants weren’t seen by all, but no species that wouldn’t be retrieved on later trips. This rule was a fun little extra for them and implied that the person with most species not seen by the rest of the group would get the worst sleeping place until the score was equal again. Of course this meant, that everybody would try to get the others onto each and every bird and maybe it was meant to strengthen the group cohesion. Without this rule, possibly there would have been only one record holder instead of three in the end. Or worse (?) they might have split up at some point, as apparently there was some frustration in the group at a few points (ahem*Corvo*ahem).
Their approach

The birding community has been spoilt in recent years with the blogs about record-breaking Big Years. People like Noah Strycker, Arjan Dwarshuis, John Weigel, Olaf Danielson and others somehow managed to virtually bird for 365 consecutive days AND blog about this on a very regular basis. They all had specific records to chase and surpassed them long before the year was over. However they all kept going until the very last day and some of them added new species even in the last hours before New Year’s Eve. They went to the absolute maximum to set records that would be nearly impossible to beat for future contenders and to get the most out of their year. 

With no record to beat and apparently a different mindset, this was not the aim of the BYWP team. They ended with a very respectable number of 761 species, but didn’t try for the absolute maximum. About one third of their year wasn’t spent birding at all and many rarities (and even some rare regulars like Shikra and Caspian Tit) were left untwitched. Many of the rarities they observed were longstayers and easily gettable even weeks after their original discovery (e.g. Black-browed Albatross which they only went for 3.5 month after its initial turning up!). These decisions weren’t always logical to me as a follower: They often hesitated to twitch birds even at close range (e.g. Caspian Plover, Stejneger’s Stonechat), left out staked out rarities (e.g. White-throated Bee-eater, Slaty-backed Gull), gambled for later chances to get birds (e.g. Ivory Gull, Pine Bunting) and even aborted their stay on Corvo without clear reasons. 

Shikra was one of the species they missed. After having tried hard but failed in January they neither went to Azerbaijan, where the species breeds nor returned to Kuwait in December, where a bird was seen on a regular basis. © Armin Kreusel
In contrast, they cleaned up extraordinarily well on the regular species of the WP. Of the 706 species that breed, winter or migrate in the WP, they only missed out on 10(-15*) difficult species: Goliath Heron, Magnificient Frigatebird, (African Darter), Verreaux’s Eagle, Shikra, Pin-tailed Snipe, (African Skimmer), Caspian Tit, Algerian Nuthatch, (Hume’s Wheatear), (Pygmy Sunbird), Red-billed Firefinch, (African Silverbill), Scottish Crossbill and Pallas’s Reed Bunting. In such a politically and geographically diverse and challenging region as the WP this is extremely remarkable. They visited some of the remotest parts of the WP, including Mauritania and Svalbard to get as many of the regulars as possible and most times cleaned up on the first try, even with very difficult species. What makes this even more special, was the fact that they found all birds on their own and without guides (at least where possible). If they missed a species however, they wouldn’t return to the country in most cases. 

*records of the species in parentheses were not submitted to any of the internet sites I checked in 2017

Future Big Years: How to beat 800

Anybody trying a Big Year in the WP in the future should use this attempt as a starting point to plan their approach. It gives great insight into the distribution of native and introduced birds in the region. However all in all the twitching could have been stepped up by up to 30-40 species. 15-20 species could've been added with a better Corvo strategy alone (see post #2778)!

Bird species #758 was this Dwarf Bittern from the afrotropics that appeared on Fuerteventura in December © Big Year WP
To maximise numbers and beat the current record there are some obvious changes to be made. First of all the whole year should be used for birding. Of course there will be some days where nothing can be chased, but more often than not there were several vagrants in the WP that could’ve boosted the BYWP team’s list, even in the seemingly less exciting winter and summer months. It seems sensible to start the year off with a twitching spree and sack as many vagrants as possible so you won’t have to worry about them later in the year. In 2017 these would have been e.g. Ivory Gull, Red-necked Stint and Pine Bunting. I'd recommend to do the same with species that are easier to get in winter (e.g. Snowy Owl, Geese, Loons, Grey-cheeked Chickadee, Lesser Redpoll) and if there isn’t much of interest use the often rather quiet winter days to visit remote regions, where finding rarities is much more likely than in central Europe. The different Macaronesian island groups (Azores, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Madeira) seem like a safe bet, with the benefit of already adding all their endemics (except for maybe some pelagic species). Doing early and extensive trips to Kuwait and Morocco/Western Sahara/Mauritania will add many species that reach the limits of their range and might only be rare seasonal visitors (e.g. Indian Roller, Buff-bellied Pipit, Pacific Golden Plover in Kuwait or vagrants from the Afrotropics like Abyssinian Roller, Kelp Gull, Royal Tern, Pied Crow or rarer birds in this heavily underwatched region).

When this is done and prime migration time still hasn’t begun you could either return home and wait for the next vagrant to twitch - the UK or Spain seem like a good home base as many vagrants are discovered and the infrastructure allows for quick twitching elsewhere – or you could start checking off some introduced species. A trip to the Netherlands and nearby Germany (which can surely be combined with some vagrants) would yield Snow, Swan, Canada, Cackling, Bar-headed & Egyptian Goose, Black Swan, Mandarin & Ruddy Duck, Pheasant, Yellow-headed Amazon, Alexandrine & Ring-necked Parakeet and Vinous-throated Parrotbill. Trips to Italy, France, Spain, Portugal or the UK would add Muscovy Duck (IT), Northern Bobwhite (IT, not sure if already calling), Reeves’ (FR) & Golden Pheasant (UK), African Sacred Ibis (IT, FR), Monk Parakeet (SP, PO), Red-billed Leiothrix (SP), Crested Myna (PO), Black-headed Weaver (PO), Yellow-crowned Bishop (PO), Common Waxbill (SP, PO), Red Avadavat (SP, PO) and Indian Silverbill (FR). 

By now migration time should have started and this should be the main factor of your decision making. Get to migration hotspots like Israel, Kuwait and Gibraltar, where additions to your yearlist should come as a steady stream with high potential for further vagrants. Also try to squeeze in as many twitching trips as your schedule and wallet allow you, as vagrants will turn up all over the WP. Always prioritize megas over more regular ones (e.g. go for the Short-billed over the Long-billed Dowitcher, or for the Oriental Plover over the Lesser Yellowlegs) as these might not turn up a second time during the year. It seems easiest if you just leave 2-5 days of spare time between your different trips.

By late April you can focus on the localized breeders of the WP and visit northwestern Africa, Egypt, the Caucasus area (Azerbaijan could add Caspian Tit and Shikra to the list compiled by the BYWP team), Turkey and Cyprus, just like the BYWP team did. By June it seems sensible to visit northeastern European Russia and Kazakhstan. By going even further north than the BYWP team did you could add a few more species like Pin-tailed (& possibly Swinhoe’s) Snipe and Siberian Accentor plus everything you missed before.

The BYWP now added in a trip to Svalbard, which seems like a rather costly thing to do, but is surely an unforgettable trip. While Ivory Gull might be the only bird species you couldn’t get elsewhere, there are many marvellous mammals that could be added to a mammal list in addition to the surely impressive landscapes and icebergs. If this is too expensive, then Varanger should deliver the same species (plus Steller’s Eider) for a fraction of the cost. 
Afterwards would be the time to add those species that are still missing from your list. These probably include some species from the Mediterranean region, from Iceland and some pelagic species. If you can clean up on these until September you should basically be done with the regular species of the WP and will only have to worry about vagrants for the rest of the year. 

September is the prime month for american vagrants, however much of it was left unbirded by the BYWP team
When September starts, try to get to Corvo and leave only if other rarities turn up elsewhere. You should get many yank vagrants in this time and at first sight it might seem that you could miss out on Siberian vagrants. However you’ll have bagged most of these during the Russia trip and stuff like Radde’s or Dusky Warbler, Pechora Pipit or the real eastern megas are normally still being reported after the Corvo season is over by late October. 
You can now concentrate fully on twitching rarities and whatever you may have missed before. The same regions as in January are now worth a visit, as these are the places you are most likely to get additions to your list. If you want you could also add a trip to Algeria (get the visa in time!), which is still frowned upon by many birdwatchers but yields goodies such as Algerian Nuthatch and Red-billed Firefinch.

In short here’s what I believe you should or could do different from the BYWP team:

  • Start off with a twitching spree
  • Twitch anything that doesn’t seem unlikely to stay
  • Twitch immediately after discovery
  • Leave days between your travels for twitching
  • Prioritize MEGAs
  • If you’ve got time clean up early on more common vagrants and introduced species
  • Visit the Macaronesian Island groups early in the year
  • Visit Azerbaijan for Shikra and Caspian Tit. (You could do this instead of visiting Georgia as the species are mostly the same)
  • Extend the Russia trip to the north
  • Visit Gibraltar or southern Spain for Rüppell’s Vulture and migration
  • Visit Iceland in summer
  • Visit Algeria
  • Get earlier to (and certainly don’t leave) Corvo
  • Do more pelagics
  • End your year in a remote place like the Azores, Western Sahara or Kuwait
  • Use the whole year
  • Use the newly defined Greater Western Palearctic as a basis
  • Record all mammals (and other animal groups) that you see

Conclusions


The BYWP team has achieved something great. Only few people would have thought that 761 species in a single year would be possible in the WP. However this attempt has shown that indeed the bar can be set even higher. Maybe 800 species could be the target to chase for future attempts. Much was done very right by the Swedish birders, who managed to record almost all of the Western Palearctics regular species, even some of the scarcest birds of the region like African Grey Woodpecker, Black-headed Penduline Tit or Yellow Bittern. Very few regular species like Goliath Heron or Shikra could’ve been added to this attempt, however the vagrant game could’ve been stepped up. In addition to the Corvo incident many possibilities to twitch rarities were left untouched. In this commentary I tried to summarize the steps necessary for an even bigger list. Of course this will be strenuous and expensive, however attempts in other parts of the world have shown that such Big Years are possible. 
There is great interest within the birding community to follow Big Years and any future attempt would be followed by hundreds if not thousands of followers. For such future attempts or anybody interested in WP birding I attach a spreadsheet of all the bird taxa recordedas wild in the WP, with comments and remarks on status, distribution, occurrence, taxonomy, etc.

I am also currently working on a spreadsheet that covers the birds of the newly defined ‘Greater WP’ as defined by D. Mitchell (2017). Even though this new definition has its drawbacks, I suggest this should become the new definition to use, as I’ll outline in a different commentary.
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The mysterious Kinglet Calyptura




This is the story of the mysterious Kinglet Calyptura, which has managed to elude the ornithologists and birders of humanity for over 100 years:
Some of the smallest birds of the world live in Latin America. The Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) of Cuba with only 5 to 6 cm and 1.6-2.6 g is likely the smallest of them all, shortly followed by the similarly tiny Short-tailed Pygmy-Tyrant (Myiornis ecaudatus) which is the smallest passerine: It measures 6.5cm, weighs 4.2g and lives throughout much of the continent.
Some readers might have seen these. But I doubt any reader has ever seen the Kinglet Calyptura (Calyptura cristata). At 7.5-8 cm it's not much bigger than the aforementioned species, being even smaller than e.g. the eurasian Goldcrest (Regulus regulus) (9cm) or the north american Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) (8-11cm). With its yellow-green colouration, two white wingbars on the blackish wings, a stubby tail and especially its black-bordered large orange-red crown patch it actually looks a lot like these two.

Specimen of Kinglet Calyptura (Calyptura cristata), probably a male
taken in Brazil, probably prior to 1890.
Special thanks to the 'Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg',
where these pictures were taken. ©Mathieu Waldeck


Only a very tiny handful of people have ever set eyes on a living Kinglet Calyptura in recent years. Back in late October 1996 the observation of a pair on the edge of Serra dos Órgãos National Park, ca. 60 km north of the city of Rio de Janeiro resurrected the species from the dead for three days and put them back on our radar:

The Kinglet Calyptura was first described to science by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1818 from a specimen taken in Rio de Janeiro. It was certainly not as rare back then as it is today. Over 55 specimens can be found in museum collections. But it vanished for more than a century after the last specimen was collected in 1890. Many ornithologists believed it to have gone extinct and only few people knew much about it, when suddenly on October 27th local ornithologist Riccardo Parini found what appeared to be the "most anxiously awaited" rediscovery of South America.
After calling some friends and describing what he had just seen they returned the next day to confirm its existence and exclude a misidentification. Bad weather prevented them to find the birds on this day, so on October 29th they returned once again and at 6:30 in the morning a tiny little bird popped up for a few seconds ca. 150-200 m away from the expected place in significantly taller trees than two days earlier (second growth atop some fairly dense, 3-4 m high trees), but soon vanished into a nearby treetop. Hastily the search party relocated to a better viewing spot and after a short search they finally got the views they had hoped for. Four observers had the great luck of being the first observers in over a hundred years of the enigmatic Kinglet Calyptura. After a while they noticed, that there were actually two birds, which they observed on the next day again. Even though professional video and sound-recording gear had been brought no footage could be obtained, as the birds quickly disappeared after their anxiously awaited appearance. Two more people saw the bird this time, while three people missed their chance of seeing it, probably forever, when they decided to walk a little bit down the road and search there.
What they noticed in addition to the known key field marks (size & colouration) were two things that differed from what they had expected: The orange-red crown was held erect like a crest and the bird sat rather upright. This disagreed with the way that Kinglet Calypturas has always been depicted in books before. Unfortunately the birds would not call or do anything other than repeat a routine of flights, with brief pauses to rest on specific treetops. The upright posture actually makes some sense, if you consider that the Calyptura is most closely related to the members of the genuses Platyrinchus and Neopipo, forming a basal branch of the tyrant flycatcher family, which have a fairly erect posture too.
The following 30 days the group returned nine times, but to no avail before the observation was finally announced to the general public in late November. Remember that this was before the era of cell phones, the internet and instant news.
For most people that have heard the story of the Calyptura this is already where it ends. The birds are most probably still out there, though their diminutive size, unknown calls and likely small population has hindered another rediscovery. But there are three more unconfirmed sightings from the general area that bear some credibility:
A report from July 1990 by Tomas Sigrist describes a pair following a mixed flock in subcanopy at Picinguaba near Ubatuba in Sao Paulo. It’s interesting to know that this report (proceeding the sightings from 1996) already mentions the male raising its crest, something that was an unknown behaviour at the time. However it wasn’t published until 2005, which is somewhat surprising given the noteworthiness of this incredible sighting.
A second report on 27th March 1997 by Ladd Hockey from a place near Ubatuba Experimental Station goes into detail about several key characteristics that were noticed, but unfortunately the observations was short (5 s) and his wife Petra  was birding apart from him at the moment and thus couldn’t confirm the observation. Again the raised crest is mentioned.
And finally on 4th March 2006 Martin Schaefer reported that he and his wife had observed a Calyptura in subcanopy near Ubatuba, again with a mixed species flock. Again the description fits well with Kinglet Calyptura, but some key characteristics like the size or the short tail are left unmentioned and at least one of the accompanying species mentioned (Red-legged Honeycreeper) does not occur in the area.
Recently a two-month survey by Frank Lambert from mid-september to mid-november 2006 sadly ended fruitless, as did another 15-day expedition in search of the enigmatic Calyptura in October 2010 by Luciano Lima. But I’m convinced that it is still out there and will eventually be re-rediscovered!

Further reading:

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