An Australian ornithologist has found a secretive marsh bird, a Purple Gallinule, on the Oak Ridge Reservation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory said in a post published on Twitter on Sunday, July 2, 2017. (Screenshot from ORNL video)
An Australian ornithologist has found a secretive marsh bird, a Purple Gallinule, on the Oak Ridge Reservation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory said in a video post published on Twitter on Sunday.
Australian ornithologist Liz Znidersic recently came to ORNL to study secretive bird species, ORNL said in the video. She found the new bird using video and audio equipment.
The Purple Gallinule is typically only found in coastal or tropical areas.
“The Purple Gallinule has not been found on the Oak Ridge Reservation ever,” Znidersic said in the video. “This is the first one to be found also in Roane County.”
An Australian ornithologist, Liz Znidersic, has found a secretive marsh bird, a Purple Gallinule, on the Oak Ridge Reservation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory said in a video post published on Twitter on Sunday. (Screenshot from ORNL video)
It requires a lot of survey effort, including camera traps and acoustics, to find “sneaky” birds, Znidersic said. Researchers try to use non-invasive, “critter-friendly” methodologies, she said. These types of birds are often in dense vegetation and not seen, and they are detected through their vocalizations, Znidersic said. It’s not clear if the Purple Gallinule was seen or heard.
“Finding a Purple Gallinule in Tennessee is liking finding a needle in a haystack,” Znidersic said in the video. “We don’t enough about the species to determine why it’s here. But we know it is here, and the next step in this research is to find out whether it is breeding at this location.”
ORNL said the Oak Ridge Reservation, which is located on 32,000 acres in East Tennessee, is home to 427 wildlife species, more than half of them birds.
Calling all #birders: #Australian #ornithologist Liz Znidersic recently discovered a secretive marsh #bird on the Oak Ridge Reservation. pic.twitter.com/VZ8TAKKvZ5
— Oak Ridge Lab (@ORNL) July 3, 2017
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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Philip W Nipper says
I have always known that there is a larger than normal population of “Do-Dos” and “Goonies” around here but this is truly a bird of a different feather.