Meet the most recently christened member of Columbia's bird clan, the Fenwick's antpitta (Grallaria fenwickorum). The Fenwick's antpitta is named after Dr. George Fenwick and his family, in recognition of their immense contribution to Columbian bird conservation. Dr. Fenwick is the President of the American Bird Conservancy, an organization he founded in 1994 to protect native birds and their habitats throughout the world.
The Fenwick's antpitta is a cinnamon brown bird native to the montane cloud forests of western Columbia. It is a shy thrush-like songbird that stands about seven inches high. Its closest kin is thought to be the brown-banded antpitta. The Fenwick's antipitta can be distinguished from the brown-banded antpitta by its lack of a brown breat band and lighter brown feathers on its back.
The Fenwick's antpitta was first spotted in 2008 in the Colibri del Sol Bird Reserve, a protected area on the Paramo del Sol massif in the western Andes of Colombia. After the bird's discovery, experts from the American Bird Conservancy and ProAves gathered data and compiled a detailed description of the species. This research has revealed that the Fenwick's antipitta lives only in a small area within the Andean cloud forests in western Columbia. It prefers drier eastern flacing slopes where volcanic soils and thickets of dwarf bamboo are common.
Due to its limited range and rarity, the Fenwick's antpitta is classified as critically endangered.
Photo © Fundacion ProAves.
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Too bad that the people describing this new species stole the discovery from the ones responsible for this remarkable find. See: http://www.ornitologiacolombiana.org/oc9/caranton.htm#1in and http://www.ornitologiacolombiana.org/oc9/notaeditoroc9.htm#English