SARBN: White-breasted Waterhen
Trevor Hardaker
Hi everyone,
Many of you may have heard of the White-breasted Waterhen that was found at a farm dam near Tzaneen yesterday. I have been inundated with messages about this bird last night and this morning already about why there hasn’t been a giga alert posted on SARBN about it and why I haven’t shared the news yet…
You are obviously welcome to all make your own minds up about this, but here are my thoughts…
Let’s look at some facts first:
· This species is NOT a regular migrant anywhere within its natural range, whether short distance or long distance. It is known to occasionally make some local movements for other reasons e.g. local conditions, food, etc. and expanding its range, but these are generally only short distance movements.
· Here is a map showing its current global range. As you can see, it is restricted to Asia and some of the island colonies like the Philippines and Indonesia. There are also populations in parts of the Middle East and on the Maldives.
· There is no precedent anywhere in the world for long distance vagrancy in this species. Even although it occurs in the Middle East, it has never officially been accepted as occurring on the African continent. It has apparently made it across to Socotra before, but this is not very far from where it naturally occurs in Oman, so not a big distance at all. But it never made it across from there to the African continent. Even although it occurs on Timor-Leste, it has never officially been recorded crossing the Timor Sea to reach the Australian mainland. Based on this, it seems that this species does not like to cross large expanses of water ever.
· So, what of the bird near Tzaneen…? Where could it have originated from initially? The closest known natural populations are in Oman in the Middle East and on the Maldives. If it came from the Oman population, it would have travelled around 5300km down Africa to get there. With a bird that is not naturally a long distance migrant, why would it fly over so many thousands of km where there would be suitable habitat before it decided on a farm dam in Tzaneen? If it came from the Maldives, it would have had to travel around 4800km to get there, most of which would have been over open ocean. It would have flown right over Madagascar, then crosses more ocean and travelled over Mozambique as well before it landed up in Tzaneen. Surely, a bird that is not a long distance migrant would have stopped at the first suitable habitat that it found and not carried on for a few thousand more km…?
· Yes, birds do weird things at times, but all of this just seems VERY strange and unprecedented to consider this bird as a genuine vagrant.
As mentioned previously, these are just my thoughts and you are welcome to do your own research and come up with your own opinions on this.
People have also asked me who would keep this species in captivity locally. I don’t have the answers to that unfortunately, but I’ve been surprized to find out in the past which species are actually kept in captivity in SA. If anyone is aware of anyone that is keeping or has kept this species in the past in SA, I would be interested in hearing from you about it.
You are also welcome to disagree with anything that I have said above and, if you are aware of any facts that refute anything that I’ve said above, please do share them with me.
This has nothing to do with the fact that this bird is not in the Cape (as I’ve seen mentioned on some groups already). It doesn’t matter where a bird turns up – if I believe that there is a reasonable chance that it is a genuine vagrant, I will always share the news immediately to give people a reasonable chance of twitching it. After all, it was only around a year ago that many of us were all traveling to Limpopo to enjoy the Wood Warbler there.
I actually have a vague recollection that I have already received records in the past of White-breasted Waterhens in SA and didn’t broadcast those either, but I just can’t find those details now. I will keep searching to see if I can find those previous records…
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Kind regards
Trevor