The birdwatchers are calling their find Lisu wren babbler, after the Lisu community of Arunachal Pradesh. Credit: Praveen J
Bird watchers believe they have spotted a new bird in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, in India’s north-east.
On a Himalayan birding expedition in the Noa-Dihing Valley, Praveen J, an engineer and avid birdwatcher, spotted a bird strikingly similar to the grey-bellied wren babbler, but with a sweet song similar to that of the Naga wren-babbler.
The new bird had a whitish belly and Praveen believes it is likely to be a new taxon. “Its rank, whether it is a new species or subspecies, needs to be determined through genetic analysis and comparisons,” he says. The new bird’s similarities to the Spelaeornis species of typical wren babblers prompted Praveen and his team of six bird watchers to name it Lisu wren babbler, after the Lisu community of Arunachal Pradesh.
“All the birds we found had a sweet song similar to that of the Naga wren-babbler and quite unlike the trilling of the grey-bellied wren babbler,” he says.
Another feature that distinguished the new bird from the grey-bellied wren babbler was its white underside.
The birders were hoping to spot the elusive grey-bellied wren babbler, which is ranked 10th of ‘top 20 most difficult birds to spot' on Bird Count India’s ‘Fantastic Birds and Where to Find Them’. Its last reported sighting was in 1988 when two specimens were collected from Arunachal Pradesh. One of the specimens is now in the Smithsonian Museum in the United States.
The birders analysed the skin of wren babblers in various museums and photographs from other sites, and tried to match the sounds they captured with existing recordings of grey-bellied wren babblers. They also got photographs of the single specimen in the Smithsonian Museum. “Surprisingly, the Smithsonian specimen from these mountains also has a whitish belly,” says Dipu Karuthedathu, another expedition member.
Mostly found in Myanmar, China, and Thailand, grey-bellied wren babblers are very occasionally found (at 1200m-1800m) in India in the tough terrain of the upper reaches of Noa-Dihing Valley. The birders say they climbed the Himalayas for two days beyond Vijoynagar, a village of the Lisu community, to reach the altitudes where the grey-bellied wren babblers were believed to have been seen.
