The re-discovered Urich’s Tyrannulet was photographed by David Ascanio in cloud forest habitat in northeast Venezuela.

Only viewed twice before since its discovery in 1899, a small flycatcher – the Urich’s Tyrannulet – revealed itself to an expedition in the mountains of northeast Venezuela as the team took the first quality photos of the species and recorded its calls, while shedding light on the behavior and ecology of the Urich’s Tyrannulet. With such a pausity of records, the Urich’s Tyrannulet is one of the rarest and most little-known birds in South America. The team initiated the expedition in May, led by ornithologist David Ascanio and supported by American Bird Conservancy (ABC).

Ascanio described the tiny olive-green flycatcher: “It’s not as striking as many of the other birds in the same forest, and it has a shrill call, but if it’s there it means that the forest is healthy. It’s aligned with the presence of all these other wonderful forest birds and other species. I was shaking with excitement when we first saw it!”

The mountains in northeast Venezuela where the tyrannulet was found are part of a unique ecosystem that supports plants and animals found nowhere else. Among these are birds such as the White-tipped Quetzal, Handsome Fruiteater, and the endangered Venezuelan Sylph, all of which the team observed in the forest with the Urich’s Tyrannulet.

Into The Field

Ascanio and his 5-person expedition team set out on a 6-day search for the tyrannulet that began May 11. Their route through the mountains traversed areas once visited by the famed naturalist Alexander von Humboldt and included the habitat of many species prized by birders, like the only nocturnal fruit-eating Oilbirds.

The expedition team originally hoped to revisit the location where the last confirmed Urich’s Tyrannulet sighting had been made in 2005 by Ascanio and Mark Sokol, a music professor and birder. But in the years since that sighting, the forest where Ascanio and Sokol found the species had been almost completely clear-cut and converted to grasslands.

Forced to find a new location to search for the species, the team used satellite images and suggestions from local people to identify 2 sites that seemed promising. They also received a lead on a third site from an unexpected source: Ascanio was scrolling through Instagram when he noticed a photo of a thickly forested mountainside alleged to have been taken near Yucucual in the state of Monagas, not far from a location where a specimen of Urich’s Tyrannulet was collected in 1943. He contacted the photographer, Carlos Matheus, and after hearing a bit more about the forest, Ascanio decided to add the location to their tyrannulet search.

Mountain Sites

When the team members arrived in the mountains, they found to their dismay that 1 of the 3 sites had already been heavily degraded, with many of the forest-dwelling birds gone. At another location, it rained so hard that it was impossible to search for birds. In the area around Yucucual, however, they found a beautifully forested hillside, just as in the Instagram photo. And, by luck, the weather was perfectly clear.

The forest at Yucucual, called Yucucual-Mata de Mango, resembled the one where Ascanio had originally seen the Urich”s Tyrannulet in 2005. Its dense canopy, which only allowed sporadic patches of sunshine to break through, had vines hanging from trees, and was filled with raucous bird songs, another encouraging sign.

Even in this beautiful forest, however, finding the first Urich”s Tyrannulets in more than 15 years was not easy. The team searched for 10 hours before, suddenly and much to their delight, a pair of the small greenish-olive birds flew down to perch on a branch in the lower portion of the canopy. The next morning the team was able to find a second pair of the tyrannulets and record their calls for the first time!

The sightings also gave ornithologists the first chance to describe some aspects of Urich’s Tyrannulet behavior and habitat, while accurately documenting what the species looks like in the wild. The birds constantly cock their tail, a behavior commonly seen in warblers and some other tyrant-flycatchers, and they seem to only inhabit forests with emergent trees reaching above the canopy. The tyrannulets also have a pale base on their lower mandible and an ill-defined line in the lower part of their face. These details are hard to detect on museum specimens and was missing from previous descriptions and illustrations of the species.

“It’s amazing that these forests still harbor surprises and practically unknown species,” said Lina Valencia, Andean Country Coordinator for Re:wild, which helps scientists search for lost species around the world. “Expeditions to remote areas like Yucucual-Mata de Mango are extremely difficult, but it’s really encouraging to find such a rare species as Urich’s Tyrannulet.”

With so much of the forest in the area gone, Yucucual-Mata de Mango may be one of the only places left where Urich’s Tyrannulets still survives. Ascanio hopes that with the help of the local community, this forest will become a destination for birders and ecotourists, and that the habitat, the tyrannulet, and the many other unique species living there will be protected for years to come.

Denting the Database

For researchers at the American Bird Conservancy and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s global eBird database initially helped to bring the Urich’s Tyrannulet to their attention. “Urich’s Tyrannulet was 1 of only 16 species of birds in all of South America that no one had reported to eBird in the past 10 years, so it immediately stood out to us as one of the most poorly known birds on the continent,” said John Mittermeier, Director of Threatened Species Outreach at ABC. “Considering that it is also endangered and that much of the habitat in its small range has disappeared since it was last seen, trying to find the tyrannulet and confirm that it had not gone extinct was an important conservation priority for us.”

eBird also helped to point to the lack of information regarding what the tyrannulet looks and sounds like. The bird had no sound recordings in the database and only a single blurry photograph, taken by Ascanio in 2005.

Thanks to Ascanio and his team’s discovery, some of these knowledge gaps have now been filled. For the first time, we know for certain what the Urich’s Tyrannulet looks and sounds like. Ascanio and his team have archived their observations, photos, and sound recordings in the Cornell Lab’s Macaulay Library, where it is publicly available for research and conservation efforts. Along with the new information about where this species lives, this data can help conservation groups begin taking steps needed to protect it.

Expedition Team

David Ascanio – Coordinator of the search team; Research Associate with Coleccion Ornitologica Phelps; co-author of Birds of Venezuela (2017).

Pedro Cabello – Ecologist; nature guide; search team and field checklists manager.

Tomas Odehnal – Transportation, food, and lodging logistics; naturalist, field assistant.

Carlos Matheus – Nature guide; photographer that provided details of the locations visited; field planning regarding Covid regulations and community access; field assistant.

Thore Noernberg – Nature guide; field assistant.

To access the original American Bird Conservancy article, see https://abcbirds.org/article/found-urichs-tyrannulet/