Dear All,

Some six weeks ago a group of us had an expedition to the North East
Province to try and rediscover Collared Lark, and this was
subsequently written up with an accompanying birds/mammals/reptiles
list and posted on the net.
Whilst I was on my way to record and video the first Collared Lark
seen since 1967, I ran into a group of three identical flycatchers
that had unusually elongated tails. As I was pressed to get to the
lark, I looked at the birds briefly and took a couple of photos before
hurrying on.

What was probably something similar was seen independently by Chege
Kariuki and Nigel Hunter at another locality.

On returning to Nairobi a preliminary investigation into the identity
of these birds was started. Nigel Hunter found the rather scant
write-up of Wahjier Grey Flycatcher Melaenornis bufirawari in
Mackworth-Praed and Grant.  This was subsequently sunk into Bradornis
and lumped as a race of Pale Flycatcher (pallidus).  Maybe without any
detailed work to justify this sinking of the form, which will show to
be a very dangerous practice.

There were several features on the bird that clearly separated it from
normal Pale Flycatchers, extensive white lores, white semi-circle
above eye, not conjoined with the loral patch, long hooked bill, long
and strangely graduated tail.

We collectively read up on the form, or any other possible
identification, and found that there was hardly any published data,
and the image was circulated to various ornithologists in Africa and
Europe, and none could come up with anything that suggested that the
bird was of any known form.

Nigel Redman did some research finding out that bufirawari, though
thought to occur in Somalia and Ethiopia and stated as such in some of
the world checklists that do treat it as a specific identity, had
never in fact been recorded outside of Kenya, and was in fact an
endemic to NE Kenya.

The most rewarding research was undertaken by David Fisher who visited
Tring a few days ago, and was successful in locating and examining the
type specimen. In the first type description by Bannermann there is
mention of a female as well, but the whereabouts of this are currently
unknown, and it would appear that when they were collected by native
collector Bufirawar (hence the scientific name) in 1924, who was at
the time working for Jackson, it has never been collected or knowingly
seen since that initial encounter.

David has sent me some very good images of this type male, and whilst
it is difficult to see some finer details, some features stand out.
These are the extensive pale loral patch, discontinuous pale crescent
over eye, and the tail is indeed graduated.  Evidence strongly
supports that the birds at least those photographed at the Collared
Lark site were bufirawari. Also the differences from Pale Flycatcher
(not typically a desert species!) are quite dramatic, heavily
supporting that once again Mackworth-Praed and Grant were right on the
ball, and subsequent lumping by the less informed was the wrong road
to follow. By lumping this form into Pale Flycatcher, it meant that
the entire existence of the bird was "forgotten."  My thoughts are
that when a form is formally described, that an equally convincing
case for the re-absorption of forms should be accompanied by equally
detailed sets of scientific fact, and I don't think that this is the
case currently as well as in those "old days."

This is as exciting a find as the Collared Lark, although not
appreciated at the time of discovery, and one species not seen for
forty years was only fifty metres away from another that had not been
seen for over eighty!

Best to All

Brian Finch