Maybe you’ve heard about this Ivory-billed Woodpecker thing. How some guy in Arkansas rediscovered the bird. How a couple of guys from Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology came down and confirmed it. How a whole passel of ornithologists descended on the place in total secrecy and after 7,000 person-hours got both identifiable photos and voice recordings of the bird’s call.
Unless you have just emerged from a twenty year nap or a cave in Tibet you have certainly heard about all this.
But have you ever heard about the Small-headed Flycatcher?
Well.
Back in the early 1800’s there was this guy named Alexander Wilson (whom I have told you about before). He was a Scot who came to the United States and decided to publish a series of books that featured all the birds found in his adopted country. The seven book series was called American Ornithology.
During his travels and studies, Wilson found or named a number of birds then unknown to science (including two in Cape May—the Cape May Warbler and the Wilson’s Plover). But one bird he laid claim to, a bird called the Small-headed Flycatcher, remains a matter of debate and dispute.
Apparently, and as far as I know, only one other individual ever saw a Small-headed Flycatcher. His name is John James Audubon. He is the other half of the dispute.
It happened like this. In the spring of 1810 or maybe 1811(the account is not clear), Wilson reported that he “collected” a small, yellow, flycatcher-like bird on the Bartram property along the Schuylkill River.
Collected, by the way, means “shot.”
Said Wilson of the bird, “It was remarkably active, running, climbing, darting about among the opening buds and blossoms with extraordinary agility. From what quarter of the United States or of North America it is a wanderer, I am unable to determine, having never met with an individual of the species before.”
Naming a bird is the right and privilege of the finder. He called the small passerine the Small-headed Flycatcher and gave it the scientific name Muscicapa minuta. No problem, no controversy. The bird, as Wilson painted it, is depicted in Volume 6, Plate L, Figure 5 in his famous work (sandwiched between Barn Owl and Great Horned Owl). It wasn’t until John James Audubon published his work, Birds of North America that things began to get dicey. Said J.J. of the bird:
“When Alexander Wilson visited me at Louisville, he found in my already large collection of drawings a figure of the present species, which being at that time unknown to him, he copied, and afterwards published in his great work, but without acknowledging the privilege that had thus been granted him. I have more than once regretted this, not by any means so much on my own account, as for the sake of one to whom we are so deeply indebted for his elucidation of our ornithology.”
This is how a gentleman called another gentleman a liar and a thief in those days.
Wilson’s response? Silence. Utter silence. Wilson was already dead.
Now this little dynamic would interest us a good less than it already does except for one interesting facet. As mentioned, nobody but Wilson and Audubon ever claimed to have seen this critter. The written accounts and the acrimony notwithstanding, today, few ornithologists give credence to the bird’s existence.
Why?
No specimen and to many a scientific mind, no specimen translates to “no evidence.” It is a conservative approach that serves science well.
Me? I’ve got too much respect for science to be a scientist so my judgments are not hamstrung by a dependence upon empirical evidence. I believe that there was such a bird. I see no reason why two noted ornithologists should botch a sighting when so many other species that both individuals discovered and depicted existed both then and now.
I think that this small flycatcher (or possibly a warbler), which Wilson later confirmed to breed in the “swamps of South Jersey” was indeed part of the North American avifauna and that like all birds, it had habitat requirements that met its needs.
The Least Flycatcher, pictured here, is present in mature deciduous woodlands with brushy understory, usually near water. Migrants can be found in brushy woodland edges and thickets.
The bird disappeared. Why? Probably for the same reason the Ivory-billed Woodpecker declined and disappeared.
The habitat that the bird depended upon was destroyed. My presumption here is that Small-headed Flycatcher’s were dependent upon climax, eastern deciduous forest (a habitat that only exists in handed down memory and in small remnants today) or, perhaps, the species was dependent upon some habitat type on its winter grounds (wherever they were) that was lost.
This isn’t far fetched. The Bachman’s Warbler, another small North American species that is presumed to be extinct, wintered in the West Indies and was dependent upon native cane habitat. It disappeared as the cane disappeared.
Where am I going with this? Just here. You want birds, just add habitat. You want birds to disappear, just destroy habitat.
And while the Small-headed Flycatcher is gone, the news gets worse. Chances are there were other birds whose lives were tied to the old, eastern deciduous forests that were cut and cleared by European settlers.
The good news is that we’ll never know how many North American species were lost. But that’s the bad news, too.