Kinglet Calyptura
Some of the smallest birds of the world live in Latin America. The Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) with only 5 to 6 cm and 1.6-2.6 g is likely the smallest of them all, shortly followed by the similarly tiny Short-tailed Pygmy-Tyrant (Myiornis ecaudatus) which is the smallest passerine, measures 6.5cm, weighs 4.2g and lives throughout much of South America.
You might have heard of these ones, maybe even seen them. But have you heard of the Kinglet Calyptura (Calyptura cristata)? At 7.5-8 cm it's not much bigger than the aforementioned species, being even smaller than e.g. the Goldcrest (Regulus regulus) (9cm) or the Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) (8-11cm). With its yellow-green colouration, two white wingbars on blackish wings, a stubby tail and especially its black-bordered large orange-red crown patch it actually looks a lot like these two, but unlike these rather common species I'm quite sure you have never seen or heard (of) it.
Only a very tiny handful of people can claim themselves to have set eyes on a living Kinglet Calyptura. Back in late October 1996 the observation of a pair on the edge of Serra dos Órgãos National Park, ca. 60 km north of the city of Rio de Janeiro resurrected the species from the dead for three days and put them back on our radar.
The Kinglet Calyptura was first described to science by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1818 from a specimen taken in Rio de Janeiro. It was certainly not as rare back then as it is today, as over 55 specimens can be found in museum collections. But it vanished for more than a century after the last specimen was collected in 1890. Many ornithologists believed it to have gone extinct and only few people knew much about it, when suddenly on October 27th local ornithologist Riccardo Parini found what appeared to be the "most anxiously awaited" rediscovery of South America.
After calling some friends and describing what he had just seen they returned the next day to confirm its existence and exclude a mis-ID. Bad weather prevented them to refind the birds on this day, so on October 29th they returned once again and at 6:30 in the morning a tiny little bird popped up for a few seconds ca. 150-200 m away from the expected place in significantly taller trees than two days earlier (second growth atop some fairly dense, 3-4 m high trees), but soon vanished into a nearby treetop. Hastily the search party relocated to a better viewing spot and after a short search they finally got the views they had hoped for. Four observers had the great luck of being the first observers in over a hundred years of the Kinglet Calyptura. After a while they noticed, that there were actually two birds, which could again be observed on the next day. But eventhough professional video and sound-recording gear had been brought no footage could be obtained, as the birds quickly disappeared after their anxiously awaited appearance. Two more people saw the bird this time, while three people missed their chance of seeing it, probably forever, when they decided to walk a little but down the road and search there.
What they noticed in addition to the known key field marks (size & colouration) were two things that differed from what they had expected: The orange-red crown was held erect like a crest and the bird sat rather upright. This disagreed with the way that Kinglet Calypturas had been depicted in books before. Unfortunately the birds would not call or do anything other than repeat a routine of flights, with brief pauses to rest on specific treetops. The upright posture actually makes some sense, if you consider that the Calyptura is most closely related to the members of the genuses Platyrinchus and Neopipo, forming a basal branch of the tyrant flycatcher family, which have a fairly erect posture too.
The following 30 days the group returned nine times, but to no avail before the observation was finally announced to the general public in late November. Remember that this was before the era of cellphones, the internet and instant news.
For most people that have heard the story of the Calyptura this is already where it ends. The birds are most probably still out there, though their diminutive size, unknown calls and likely small population has hindered another rediscovery. But there are three unconfirmed sightings from the general area that bear some credibility:
- A report from July 1990 by Tomas Sigrist describes a pair following a mixed flock in subcanopy at Picinguaba near Ubatuba in Sao Paulo. It’s interesting to know that this report (proceeding the sightings from 1996) already mentions the male raising its crest, something that was an unknown behaviour at the time. However it wasn’t published until 2005, which is somewhat surprising given the noteworthiness of this incredible sighting.
- A second report on 27th March 1997 by Ladd Hockey from a place near Ubatuba Experimental Station goes into detail about several key characteristics that were noticed, but unfortunately the observations was short (5 s) and his wife Petra was birding apart from him at the moment and thus couldn’t confirm the observation. Again the raised crest is mentioned.
- And finally on 4th March 2006 Martin Schaefer reported that he and his wife had observed a Calyptura in subcanopy near Ubatuba, again with a mixed species flock. Again the description fits well with Kinglet Calyptura, but some key characteristics like the size or the short tail are left unmentioned and at least one of the accompanying species mentioned (Red-legged Honeycreeper) does not occur in the area.
Recently a two-month survey by Frank Lambert from mid-september to mid-november 2006 sadly ended fruitless, as did another 15-day expedition in search of the enigmatic Calyptura in October 2010 by Luciano Lima. But I’m convinced that it is still out there and will eventually be re-rediscovered!
Species has confirmedly been observed by
4 birdwatchers and there are unconfirmed reports from 4 more observers.
Further reading:
José Fernando Pacheco and Paulo Sérgio Moreira da Fonseca (2001): The remarkable rediscovery of the Kinglet Calyptura Calyptura cristata, Cotinga 16: 48-51
Guy M. Kirwan and Frank Lambert (2010): The twice-vanishing pardalote: what future for the Kinglet Calyptura Calyptura cristata?, Neotropical Birding 6: 4-17
Jan I. Ohlson, Martin Irestedt, Jon Fjeldsa, Per G. P. Ericson (2012): Nuclear DNA from a 180-year-old study skin reveals the phylogenetic position of the Kinglet Calyptura Calyptura cristata (Passeriformes: Tyrannides), IBIS 154: 533-541
Snow, D., de Juana, E. & Sharpe, C.J. (2017). Kinglet Calyptura (Calyptura cristata). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from http://www.hbw.com/node/57019 on 28 July 2017).
The search for Kinglet Calyptura (2016)
http://www.worldtwitch.com/brazil_bird_reports.htm
TV report by Globo (2016): Pesquisadores buscam tietê de coroa, ave desaparecida há 20 anos, em Bom Jardim, no RJ
Facebook event (2016): Expedição Calyptura
Eduardo Brettas (2010): Illustration of Kinglet Calyptura retrieved from http://eduardobrettas.blogspot.de/2010_10_01_archive.html on 30.07.2016
Male kinglet calyptura collected around 1850 from south-east Brazil by Finnish entomologist Reinhold Ferdinand Sahlberg retrieved from arkive.org on 30.07.2017
Rich Hoyer (2012): Kinglet Calyptura is a Tyrant Flycatcher
