One of the world’s ‘least known birds’, the Large-billed Reed Warbler Acrocephalus orinus, has been found breeding in Afghanistan. The first specimen was discovered in India in 1867, with more than a century elapsing before Phil Round identified a single bird in Thailand in 2006. “This is great news from a little-known species from a remote part of the world and suggests that there may be more discoveries to be made here”, said Mike Evans, BirdLife’s compiler of the Important Bird Areas of the Middle East. Indeed, though researchers need to get there before all life in Afghanistan is blown to bits by the war there…

Could, in 2010, a new bird species be spotted from a walkway though a rainforest? Well, it’s happened in Borneo where Leeds University biologist Richard Webster saw the first ‘Spectacled Flowerpecker’ from a canopy walkway 35m above ground. The bird was ‘identified’ as new from the photographs he took. My first reaction was “jammy s*d”, but on the other hand he does appear to have spent a rather long time fighting off mosquitoes and leeches and getting drenched repeatedly before his stroke of good luck…An online Oriental Bird Club pdf has the details.

…has gotten a bit easier to find.  The archives of The Kingbird, the quarterly journal of the New York State Ornithological Association, are now online and searchable.  So go explore the archives today even though some wonder how much we should believe.

In case you were among the hordes of fans who, like me, were left adrift when Jeff Bouton last stopped blogging, your grim gulag has ended. The hardest working digiscoper in the business is back with a new Leica Birding Blog. Check it out!