{"id":216803,"date":"2026-01-04T20:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/216803\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T20:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:41:15","slug":"for-more-than-ten-years-no-one-had-heard-it-until-two-recordings-at-night-confirmed-that-one-of-the-rarest-birds-on-the-planet-is-still-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/216803\/","title":{"rendered":"For more than ten years, no one had heard it, until two recordings at night confirmed that one of the rarest birds on the planet is still alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time in well over a decade, a small night bird long feared on the brink of extinction<\/a> has spoken up. A simple two note call recorded<\/a> in late August in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has confirmed that the Jerdon\u2019s courser still survives in the wild. For a species listed as Critically Endangered<\/a> and missing from confirmed records for many years, that brief sound is a major conservation milestone.<\/p>\n

Andhra Pradesh night survey recording<\/p>\n

The recording was made on August twenty fourth during a night survey on the dry east coast of southern India. A small team of Indian birdwatchers had spent weeks poring over maps and scientific papers before heading into the field. They walked the scrub by day, learning the contours of the land, then returned after dark to listen in near silence.<\/p>\n

On their very first night of focused listening, shortly after half past nine, the microphones captured the distinctive two note call. The file, logged with time and coordinates, was later archived so that other experts can review it.<\/p>\n

Indian birdwatchers and Jerdon\u2019s courser search<\/p>\n

The effort grew from a personal obsession. Birder Harish Thangaraj became fascinated by Jerdon\u2019s courser after reading an old description from one of the last people to see it. Together with fellow birders Shashank Dalvi, Adesh Shivkar, Ronith Urs and Pranav, he searched for scrublands that resembled the Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a>, the stronghold that had defined the species map for years.<\/p>\n

Their desk research in July and August pointed to overlooked habitat outside that sanctuary, and the late August field trip quickly proved that hunch was right.<\/p>\n

Jerdon\u2019s courser habitat and Critically Endangered status<\/p>\n

Jerdon\u2019s courser<\/a> is a medium sized ground bird with brown plumage, long legs and large eyes, built to run quickly over rough soil at night. It hunts insects in short bursts, then freezes for long stretches, a behavior that makes it almost invisible under a headlamp.<\/p>\n

It favors low, thorny scrub with open patches, exactly the kind of landscape people often dismiss as empty. That secretive lifestyle, combined with a global estimate of only about fifty to two hundred forty nine mature individuals<\/a>, explains why even dedicated observers rarely encounter it.<\/p>\n

Eastern Ghats records and Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary<\/p>\n

Over the last one hundred twenty five years the species has slipped in and out of view<\/a>. Described in the eighteen hundreds, it went missing for much of the twentieth century, then was rediscovered late in the century in a small corner of the Eastern Ghats. Most modern records came from a single protected landscape<\/a> around Sri Lankamalleswara.<\/p>\n

Outside that area, Jerdon\u2019s courser seemed to vanish again. The new call from Andhra Pradesh sits beyond those familiar hotspots, challenging the assumption that the bird now survives only inside one sanctuary.<\/p>\n

Bioacoustics and wildlife monitoring techniques<\/p>\n

This rediscovery is also a showcase for modern listening techniques. Earlier work used tracking strips and camera traps to pick up footprints and images without chasing the bird at night. Today, researchers lean on bioacoustics<\/a>, the systematic study of animal sounds. Clear protocols tell field teams how to place recorders, how long to run them and how to store each file.<\/p>\n

Later, specialists compare the pitch, rhythm and spacing of the two-note call with older reference clips. Spectrograms turn each sound into a visual pattern, which makes it easier to separate the courser from background noise or imitators.<\/p>\n

Verified documentation and audio archives for conservation<\/p>\n

That chain of evidence matters because unverified rumors can mislead conservation planning. Time, place and call structure together push this record over the line into solid documentation<\/a>. Audio files have been deposited in public libraries used by field biologists, so independent listeners can check the identification.<\/p>\n

A second round of surveys using the same methods in similar weather will help confirm that the call was no accident.<\/p>\n

Range maps, scrubland protection, and conservation planning<\/p>\n

For ecologists, even a single verified point can reshape the map of a species that clings to a tiny range. If nearby scrub patches share the same soils, shrubs and human pressure, they are likely candidates for the next round of listening. Updated range maps do more than redraw lines on a screen.<\/p>\n

They guide patrol routes, show where to place extra recording units in the next dry season and inform decisions about land conversion. A few acres of scrub can spell the difference between survival and silence.<\/p>\n

Search for Lost Birds and global conservation partners<\/p>\n

The global context makes the find even more urgent. Jerdon\u2019s courser appears on the \u201cSearch for Lost Birds\u201d list, a partnership that includes BirdLife International<\/a>, American Bird Conservancy<\/a> and the conservation group Rewild<\/a>. Senior Red List Officer Alex Berryman calls the rediscovery \u201can incredibly exciting\u201d result and stresses that \u201cfinding and documenting Lost Birds is the obvious first step in implementing action to conserve them\u201d.<\/p>\n

He notes that more than one hundred ten lost birds worldwide are still missing from recent records and many are thought to be on the verge of extinction.<\/p>\n

Bombay Natural History Society and expanded listening surveys<\/p>\n

Local scientists see the new call as a rare bright spot. \u201cIt means there is a hope for this species. And I am hopeful that further efforts to find the birds might yield positive results,\u201d says Parveen Shaikh of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS<\/a>).<\/p>\n

She and others argue that teams should now expand standardized listening surveys well beyond traditional sanctuary boundaries, archive all audio transparently and combine sound with other methods such as camera traps and track impressions to keep the evidence chain strong.<\/p>\n

Jerdon\u2019s courser conservation milestone in Andhra Pradesh<\/p>\n

In the end, this story is about more than one elusive bird. It shows how patient field skills, clear scientific protocols and committed local observers can bring a \u201clost\u201d species back onto the map<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A brief call in the dark scrub of Andhra Pradesh has opened a new chapter for Jerdon\u2019s courser<\/a> and offered a rare glimmer of hope for the many other missing birds that still wait to be heard.<\/p>\n

YouTube @Harish_Thangaraj.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in well over a decade, a small night bird long feared on the brink…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-216803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}