Happy Earth Day... Edward Abbey (American author and essayist) wrote "Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, as vital to our lives as water and bread." It's easy for me to understand this this morning as I watch seven separate bird species making and tending nests around our house in the garden; Oak Titmice, Nuttall's Woodpeckers, Western Bluebirds. Acorn Woodpeckers, Bushtits, Allen's and Anna's Hummingbirds. It's quite the bird show this year... and Nature never fails to entertain and amaze. One of our secrets is planting endemic native plants... These plants entice native insects and in turn, attract birds... if you build it, they will come.
Okay, about today's image for Threatened, Endangered Extinct v4 (to be released on Audubon's birthday April 26)... the Critically Endangered Guam Rail.
As expected, the Guam rail is endemic to Guam. It was found more frequently in savannas and scrubby mixed forest than in uniform tracts of mature forest. It was usually found in dense vegetation but it was also observed bathing or feeding along roadsides or forest edges.
The species was formerly extinct in the wild and an introduced population has now been established on Cocos, where 16 individuals were released in 2010 and a further 10 in 2012. Although individuals have been released on Guam and on Rota, there are unlikely to be any wild individuals remaining on Guam and the population on Rota is not yet considered to be self-sustaining. Evidence for breeding has been observed and the bird is now found throughout the island, so the population size is suspected to be increasing (up to 50).
The species was once abundant, with an estimated population to be around 70,000 before the 1960s. It evolved in the absence of predators, such as snakes and rats, and might have been more abundant before American colonization. After the end of World War II, the brown tree snake was accidentally transported from its native range in Papua New Guinea to Guam, probably as a stowaway in military ship cargo. Beginning in the 1960s, the snake became well established as numbers began to grow exponentially, and the rail populations subsequently plummeted, along with the rest of Guam's native bird populations. The Guam rail had no experience with such a predator, and lacked protective behaviors against the snake. Consequently, it was an easy prey for this efficient, nocturnal predator.
Appreciable losses of the Guam rail was not evident until the mid 1960s. By 1963, several formerly abundant rails had disappeared from the central part of the island where snakes were most populous. By the late 1960s, it had begun to decline in the central and southern parts of the island, and remained abundant only in isolated patches of forest on the northern end of the island. Snakes began affecting the rail in the north-central and extreme northern parts of the island in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. The population declined severely from 1969 to 1973, and continued to decline until the mid 1980s. It was last seen in the wild in 1987. Other significant threats to the rail include habitat destruction, predation by introduced rats, feral cats, and pigs.
It is omnivorous, but appears to prefer animal over vegetable food. It is known to eat gastropods (slugs and snails), skinks, geckos, insects, and carrion, as well as seeds and palm leaves. It is a secretive bird and it can run rapidly. Though its capable of a short bursts of flight, the bird seldom flies.
It is known locally as the
ko'ko' bird. Its call is a loud, piercing whistle or series of whistles, usually given by two or more birds in response to a loud noise, the call of another rail, or other disturbances.
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