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Most sought after bird in the Amazonia found in Guyana
=Interesting Creatures=
By Shervin Belgrave
The Barima-Mora Passage located in Region One Guyana.
Kaieteur News – The Black-Chested Tyrant, one of the most sought after birds in the Amazonia by bird experts and biologists around the world, has been discovered here in Guyana for the very first time.
Photo of a Black-Chested Tyrant taken in the Barima-Mora Passage (GMSC photo)
This unique creature is a striking small fly catcher with a black crest, a chestnut head, a black breast band and gray underpants has reportedly made its home in the Barima Mora Passage-one of the largest intact Mangrove Forests remaining in the country-located in Region One, Guyana. The bird was found following two ornithology (scientific study of birds) surveys and 20 days of field work conducted in the area by American Ornithologist (bird expert), Dr. Brian O’Shea and his team, in collaboration with the Guyana Marine Conservation Society (GMCS).
During a presentation of his findings at Moray House, Camp Street, Georgetown, Dr. O’Shea said, “We found it on the first day and we were pretty happy about that and on the second survey we found even more” while adding that the Black-Chested Tyrant was completely unrecorded in Guyana prior to the recent discovery.
“It was a pretty big deal to find this bird” he continued as he explained that the only other sighting of the Black-Chested Tyrant ever recorded in the Guiana Shield Forest was in neighbouring Suriname during the year 1986 and it was never seen again since then.
“…Only record was that somebody caught one in a mist net, that is in 1986 but the bird has never been seen in Suriname since, it is unknown for French Guiana and until our survey it was unknown for Guyana”, O’Shea said.
Other sightings of the bird recorded in South America were only Brazil and Venezuela. One of the reasons why it is considered one of the most sought after birds in the Amazonia and probably in the world, is because they are rarely seen, difficult to find and hard to spot”.
“It’s a very hard bird to find, it’s a very hard bird to pinpoint. It’s my knowledge that there is nowhere you can go, to be reasonably assured of seeing this bird”, O’Shea explained as he marveled at the fact that they are very common in the Barima-Mora Passage and can be seen almost every day in the area.
“Well I got news for you, this bird is very common in the Barima-Mora Passage, and it is all over the place. I would bet you that if you spend two days and there in good weather, you are going to find this bird. We saw a lot of them. We even saw one of them in front of a primary school”, the Ornithologist related during his survey presentation.
In a brief interview with the Waterfalls, O’Shea said that the bird is very hard to find because it is very small in size, inhabits swampy lands, keeps a low profile, has a low range (area where a particular species can be found during its lifetime), and a call that sounds like that of a frog or an insect making it difficult for someone to know it’s a bird.
When asked if the Black-Chest Tyrant can live in captivity, Dr. O’Shea said that it will never survive because it feeds only on insects.
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