No 6. Blackbrowed babbler

For more than 170 years, scientists and birdwatchers heard no babbling, chirping, tweeting or any other sound from the black-browed babbler. The bird was assumed extinct, until an accidental discovery by two men in the forests of Borneo’s South Kalimantan province in October 2020. “I was out looking for forest products at the limestone hill just behind my home,” recalled Muhammad Suranto, one of the men who made the discovery.

On this occasion the pair caught a black-browed babbler (Malacocincla perspicillata), a small bird with black, grey and brown feathers and reddish eyes. The bird had been known only from a specimen collected in the 1840s and had been mislabelled for about 50 years as having been found in Java rather than Borneo.

Photographs of the bird, posted on WhatsApp, were spotted by Panji Gusti Akbar, an ornithologist and member of Indonesia’s Birdpacker birdwatching group, who identified it as a black-browed babbler. “It took me a while to accept it, since it was a very, very, bold claim to report a species that has been missing for more than 100 years,” he said.

Suranto said the news excited him but he had also been afraid as it could have been a very rare species. “And I didn’t want to hurt it. I immediately released the bird.”

Since the discovery, Akbar and other ornithologists have seen a pair of babblers in thick shrubbery. “It displays an interesting habit of moving in and out of the limestone caves and crevices, clambering about … to hunt insects and other invertebrates … it has a unique, loud and melodious vocalisation, often sounded in a duet.”

The bird is classed as “data deficient” on the IUCN red list but Akbar and his team are writing a report on its distribution and possible population. “We hope … to help determine the threatened status of this species and recommend its inclusion in Indonesia’s protected species list.”