DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — When I was in Cameroon this summer, I encountered a small brown bird on the Ndop Plain in Northwest Province. Its song seemed the only distinctive thing about it, though at the time I noted two dark bars on its undertail and pink legs.

By reading descriptions of songs in Birds of Western Africa, I guessed that the bird might be a Whistling Cisticola, Cisticola lateralis.

Here’s a brief video clip, which includes three songs. Can anyone familiar with Western African birds offer an opinion? I apologize in advance for the shaky video….

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — I think I heard a Black Rail. It was early Saturday morning at Anahuac NWR. Fjord had spotted a Rallus rail by the roadside, and we’d stopped to scope it. Seaside Sparrows were abundant and active in the grasses, even perching on the fences in a classic wide-legged stance.

And that’s when I became aware of a call emanating from somewhere out in the marsh. It was faint but distinctive. I think it was a Black Rail. The species has attained such a high level of mystique in my mind that I struggled to believe what I was hearing, thinking there might be some other explanation. Well, is there?

As for the Rallus rail, which stood in the grasses and never moved, we finally decided it was probably a Clapper. It was very pale-breasted, and its bill was not strongly colored. Also, I interpreted the presence of the aforementioned Seaside Sparrows to mean that we were still in salty habitat.

I was disappointed to (again) miss King Rails in the freshwater marshes. We also missed Soras today, but we did see two other members of the rail family.

Wildlife of all sorts was active in the refuge. Here’s a sampling of our non-bird observations:

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — Headed south on I-45 this morning, I noticed flooded, muddy fields near the town of Wilmer. My shorebird radar kicked into gear (ah, mixed metaphors), and when I saw a couple of white birds in the air, I swerved off at the exit, which was very nicely placed I must say.

The gulls were not the only birds taking advantage of all that mud and water. Besides hundreds of Brewer’s Blackbirds and cowbirds, I also found American Golden-Plovers (who, unlike the gulls, showed barely even a hint of their breeding colors), a single distant bird that I took to be an Upland Sandpiper, Killdeer, and peeps.

As I looked at them, I felt fairly confident calling the smaller sandpipers Baird’s, but when I got home and checked the books, I lost most of my confidence, wondering whether they might have been Semipalmated Sandpipers instead. I was looking at the dark-centered feathers on the birds’ backs, but apparently Semipalmateds also show that feature in breeding plumage. Baird’s, of course are noticeably larger than semis — but only with a size reference, which I didn’t have. I did try to observe the birds’ wingtip projection, but they were a little too distant to be certain of a feature like that. Ah well, just when I was feeling better about my sandpiper skills….

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — Nearly eleven months ago (how is that possible?) I wrote a post called Backyard birds in PNG. Not only did I see many of those birds daily in the Aiyura Valley, I also became acquainted with their songs and calls. Shortly before I left last October, I turned on the recorder one morning to capture a few of their voices.

• Willie-wagtails (Rhipidura leucophrys) are perhaps the most frequently encountered bird in PNG. They thrive from the hot, sticky lowlands to the cool mountain valleys, and they seem perfectly content to live near people. Here’s a rather faint recording of a song phrase. Their bright, perky songs can be heard at all hours of the day and night.
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• Grey Shrike-thrushes (Colluricincla harmonica) whistle varied, musical phrases. It’s a joy to wake up to this song!
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• Brush Cuckoos (Cacomantis variolosus) puzzled me for months. They start calling before dawn and continue after dusk, but from March to July, I never actually saw a bird, and I had no idea what species this was. Finally, I saw Brush Cuckoos on Pak Island, Manus Province, and the mystery was solved. The birds sound plaintive and frantic to me; I imagine them saying, “Wait for me, Wait for me, WAIT FOR ME!” In this recording, two birds are calling together.
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• Morning chorus. Given what you’ve just learned, you should be able to identify some of the songs in this sample. Others though, you’ll be hearing for the first time. The recording starts out with a different version of the Brush Cuckoo’s call — a descending series of whistles. At about four seconds in, an Ornate Melidectes (Melidectes torquatus) gives three warbling calls. At about the 15 second mark, you can hear a Brown-breasted Gerygone (Gerygone ruficollis) begin soft, stuttering whistles in the background. A Pacific Swallow (Hirundo tahitica) chatters briefly during seconds 21-23. The occasional screeching in the background is from distant Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus).
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• Unidentified songster. Yes, we end this post with a plea for assistance. There was one song I never could positively identify, but I did manage to get a marginal recording. In this clip, I’ve snipped out the spaces between the bird’s phrases so that you hear them one right after the other. In actuality, the phrases were separated by gaps of 5-15 seconds. If you know what this bird is or know anyone who might, please let me know!
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UKARUMPA, PNG — Swiftlets darted around me as I walked to and from an interview. Sometimes they were only feet away, banking and swooping on narrow wings. Their bellies were pale gray, and they were unmarked above.

I’m desperate to identify them. I meant to go to bed an hour ago, hoping to get over a sore throat, but I’ve been scouring the internet instead. They surely have a name, and I want to know what it is.

Maybe it’s a character flaw. I tell myself I should be content to delight in what they are, that I should remain uncorrupted by the desire to confine them to a list. But I think there is something far deeper at stake — a primal urge to name. We need words.

But I don’t have them this time.

I mentioned before that “Birds of New Guinea” lists four drab swiftlets: Uniform, Mountain, Whitehead’s, and Three-toed. Some authorities place them in the genus Collocalia, but evidently the newer trend (not universally accepted) is to call them Aerodramus. This is the group of birds that includes Asia’s famous Edible-nest Swiftlet.

Three-toed Swiftlet is now called the Papuan Swiftlet. Whitehead’s Swiftlet has apparently been split into several species, and the one that kept the name “Whitehead’s” is endemic to the Philippines. The split resulted in two PNG species, Mayr’s Swiftlet (Bismarck Archipelago and Solomon Islands, virtually unknown) and Bare-legged Swiftlet. Bare-legged Swiftlet is supposedly endemic to mainland New Guinea, but I can find virtually nothing about it online, except for its name repeated over and over in checklists. No descriptions. No helpful information. No trip reports. No discussions of taxonomy.

So after all that, I’m left with four swiftlets on the island: Uniform, Mountain, Bare-legged, and Papuan. By all (i.e., three or four) accounts, Uniform and Mountain are the only species anyone ever actually sees. But why? How do they know it’s not one of the other species? Uniform and Mountain are distinguished primarily by elevation, apparently. Where does one stop and the other pick up? Do they overlap? Is that really the only way to tell?

My swiftlets need a name.