Howdy, friends.  I hope all is well in your various corners of the world.  I know its not, but I do wish it were, and there is something to be said for positivity.  Our bird this week is the black-crowned barwing.  This bird lives in parts of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and was first “officially sighted” in 1996.  A formal description and taxonomical information was published in 1999.  Unlike a lot of birds we have talked about, this was not because genetic testing determined that it was a different species than an already recognized bird, rather, this part of Asia was “ornithologically undiscovered” until then. 

The bird’s range is still rather poorly understood, as it appears to consist of damp and dense montane (mountainside) forests, and high altitude shrubland and grassland.  Large portions of its range are in Important Bird and Biodiversity areas, which are internationally recognized areas which are home to threatened species, species with small and specific ranges/biomes, or are thought to contain 1% or more of a given species on a regular basis. These places are not automatically national parks or protected spaces, and the black-crowned barwing appears to have adapted well to human use of its space.  It will live in secondary forests which have regrown after land was cleared for human use, and it doesn’t appear to especially prefer old growth forests given the choice.  Because of this and the fact that the bird has been recently discovered in new areas, I found some official-looking estimates that say its population should be adjusted upward to as many as 20,000 individuals. 

The black-crowned barwing is theoretically vulnerable to deforestation, of which there appears to be quite a bit in Vietnam recently.  13% of evergreen forest in Vietnam was cut down between 1976-1995, but since the bird doesn’t mind second growth forest, the shrubland that might replace a forest, or indeed living on plantations worked by humans, deforestation may not be a threat to it.  

Because the black-crowned barwing is so new to science, not much is known about its habits or lifestyle.  Its diet and nesting practices are unknown, but I swear wikipedia says they mate by swinging around branches and occasionally bumping cloacas. If anyone can tell me how else to interpret this passage, I’d love to know: “Instances of copulating or almost copulating involved the birds swinging full circle around a branch where their tail-bases would briefly touch while moving downwards.” You go, little bird, get some tail.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Links: https://tinyurl.com/2ys2e8sa, https://tinyurl.com/mvv4z9s2, https://tinyurl.com/nhbrr5uc, https://tinyurl.com/mdzyf663