AN ELUSIVE new species of bird has recently been spotted in Brunei near the Kuala Belalong Field Studies Centre and the Ulu Ulu Resort in Ulu Temburong.
The bird is a spectacled flowerpecker with a distinctive white ring around its black eyes.
Although they have been spotted and photographed a few times by ornithologists in other parts of Borneo, notably in Danum Valley in Sabah, it has never been collected for scientific study.
The bird is most probably endemic to Borneo and a canopy specialist thus rarely seen and having evaded detection.
The Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Research (IBER) at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) proposes to capture and collect for scientific study several of this new species and give it a scientific name.
A spectacled flowerpecker feeding on berries high up in the canopy of Brunei’s rainforest in Ulu Temburong/ – HANYROL AHMAD SAH
The lead scientist of the proposed study will be PhD candidate Hanyrol Ahmad Sah from UBD. She will be assisted by Mahdi Hussainmiya, who has also spotted the bird in Belait District, and supervised by Professor Ulmar Grafe.
If successfully collected, the spectacled flowerpecker would be the first entirely new endemic bird to be formally described for Borneo in over 100 years.
Its description from Ulu Temburong would entice numerous ornithologist from around the world to visit Brunei to catch a glimpse of this rare Bornean endemic bird thereby promoting Brunei as a high-value tourism destination.
For further information on this project please contact newflowerpecker@gmail.com.
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