gryllosblog   Gryllo's (aka Ian Lewis') blog. All things to do with travel, wildlife especially birds, history, architecture and anything else that interests me.

On 28th June I was part of a birding group in a small boat, slowly drifting down a tributary of the Kinabatenga River in Sabah, Borneo when our leader Chris Kehoe exclaimed that he could hear Bristleheads, a few minutes later a small flock of five or more bizarrely shaped red, black and yellow birds appeared in the tops of the riverine forest. Our first Bornean Bristleheads of the tour and the end of a thirty five year quest to see all the bird Families of the world!

Well what is a bird Family; well I don’t mean this!

Wood Duck and ducklings – photo from the internet.

A bird Family is a taxonomic unit above that of Genus and below that of Order. For the uninitiated I’d better summarise the essential, but sometimes confusing, subject of the classification of life.

To make sense of the many million types of organisms in existence a classification methodology based on Latin nomenclature was introduced by Linnaeus in 1735, which has been refined into the current system. It is universally applicable to all forms of life and strict rules govern its application, so that particular name is applicable to a single species and to no other.

All life is divided into six Kingdoms, three of microscopic organisms, plus fungi, plants and animals. Each Kingdom is divided into Phyla for example in animals all vertebrates are in the Phylum Chordata. Each Phylum is in turn divided into a number of Classes, in Chordata there are 6 Classes of fish, plus one each of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Each Class is divided into Orders and each Order into Families. In birds the huge group known as the passerines is a single Order Passeriformes and this is composed of 129 Families. For example the tits and chickadees form the Family Paridae and this in turn is divided into 61 Species in 14 Genera. Species can be further subdivided into subspecies where there is variation within a single species.

So the classification of our familiar Marsh Tit from the UK would be

Kingdom – Animalia – animals

Phylum – Chordata – vertebrates and allies

Class – Aves – birds

Order – Passeriformes – passerines or ‘perching birds’

Family – Paridae – tits and chickadees

Genus – Poecile – a collection of 15 mainly black, brown and white tits from the northern hemisphere

Species – Poecile pallustris – Marsh Tit

Subspecies – Poecile pallustris dresseri – the subspecies or race of Marsh Tit occurring in the UK

So what has all this to do with my recent trip to Sabah in Borneo. Of course I have been trying to see as many of the world’s bird species over the past 35 years (and, as sometimes subspecies are ‘upgraded’ to full species when new information about their breeding biology and genetics becomes available, I’ve been taking note of them as well) but many birders have realised is that to see as wide a range of bird groups as possible it is necessary to see the bird Families of the world. In total there are 232 extant Families (plus 5 uncertain groups or Incertae sedis that have still to be decided on).

The trouble is that whilst many Families are obvious to anyone interested in birds, for example all duck, geese and swans (except one) form one Family, grebes another and divers yet another, other groups are more obscure and changes are continually made as DNA evidence reveals relationships that morphology alone cannot; owls fall into two Families, Old World warblers have been placed in about six different Families and a few oddities like Przevalski’s Rosefinch and Spotted Wren-babbler are so unique that they have been placed in Families all of their own (the latter only a few months ago after DNA evidence showed it was only distant related to other Wren-babblers)

It is relatively easy to see the bulk of the Families once you have travelled to the major faunal regions of the world, it these oddball Families that present the challenge, for example Shoebill in Africa, Kagu in New Caledonia, Picathartes in West Africa or Przevalski’s Rosefinch in Tibet, not necessarily because they are hard to see but because it takes a lot of travel to get round to see them all. In recent years I have concentrated on seeing the last few and the Bornean Bristlehead, the sole member of its Family, was the last.

Some Families are obvious, even to the non-birder. All Hummingbirds are clearly related and all 345 species are in a single Family the Trochilidae.  Peacock Coquette – photo from the Internet Bird Collection

Birds of prey or raptors however fall across five Families, New World vultures form one, hawks, eagles, kites and Old World vultures form another, the Osprey and Secretary Bird are in Families of its own, whilst the fifth, the Falcons aren’t even closely related to other raptors and are now count the passerines and parrots as their nearest relatives. Bonelli’s Eagle:  photo from Internet Bird Collection

There are many monospecific Families, birds that have no close living relatives. This Przevalski’s Rosefinch or Pink-tailed Bunting from Tibet, is neither a finch nor a bunting but dates from a time before those two Families diverged. Photo from the Internet Bird Collection.

There have losses as well as gains, the diverse Hawaiian Honeycreepers were once considered to constitute a Family but now they are know to be just aberrant finches, most closely related to the Asian rosefinches.  Iiwi -photo from the Internet Bird Collection.

Its a bit of a rubbish photo but it was taken at some distance, from a moving boat and on a borrowed camera! Borneo Bristlehead, Kinabatenga River, Sabah, Borneo

To get a better idea what this mega looks like, here is a close up shot by James Eaton from the Internet Bird Collection.

But although I am very happy to have fulfilled my ambition to see all the world’s bird Families I cannot be complacent. I follow the species and Family list as produced by the IOC (International Bird Committee) which treats the Sapayoa of the Choco region of northern South America and Panama (below) as a member of the Old World Broadbills. This species has been treated as a Manakin then a  Tyrant Flycatcher, before DNA evidence showed conclusively it was a New World representative of the Broadbills. The Clements/Cornell checklist agrees in principle but places it in its own Family next to the Broadbills. I have heard, but not seen this species in Colombia.

The enigmatic Sapayoa:  Photo from the Internet Bird Collection

The Zeledonia or Wrenthrush was once considered in its own Family but then got moved to the Parulidae, the New World Warblers and then to the limbo of Incertae Sedis. There have been suggestions recently that it may again regain monospecific Family status. A trip to Costa Rica would be needed to see this beauty.

Zeledonia: Photo from the Internet Bird Collection.

And finally and most worryingly of all, the publisher Lynx Editions, in conjunction with Birdlife International are producing an Illustrated Checklist of Birds of the World. This is a wholly new concept for a checklist, the validity of each species being determined by a mathematical ranking. The first volume, due in a month or so, covers the non-passerines and the advertising blurb of the cover shows the non-passerine Families they recognise. This appears to show that they recognise the enigmatic flightless New Zealand parrot, the Kakapo as a monospecific Family. The Kakapo is on the brink of extinction and the few remaining birds have been translocated to an island where no-one but the wardens/researches are allowed to go. All TV film/video of this species appears to be of a captive individual known as Sirocco. The chances of ever seeing a wild individual of this species/Family would appear to be zero.

Of course the Family or species list produced by Birdlife International may not be accepted by the mainstream checklists of Clements/Cornell and the IOC, but even if the Kakapo does eventually get universally accepted as a new Family, I will have at least been able to say that at one stage in my life I had seen all the world’s bird Families!

Sirocco – the tame Kakapo. Photo from the Internet

The 232 Bird Familes plus 5 Icertae sedis as recognised by the IOC. The Hawaiian Oo’s are now extinct and are not included in the total.