Is the Jerdon’s Courser Extinct?

In December 2021, Re:Wild, a new conservation group, gave an international call to conservationists and birdwatchers to search for “ten lost birds” that may have been lost to science and were possibly already extinct. Two of these birds were endemic to India: mountain quail, last seen in 1876, and the Jerdon’s courser. This story is about the latter: a case of lost, found, and perhaps lost again. 

The Jerdon’s courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus) is a nocturnal cursorial (adapted for walking and running) bird first described in the 19th century and not reliably recorded after 1900 until its rediscovery in 1986 by Bharat Bhushan of the Bombay Natural History Society. Since then, it has only been seen in a few restricted areas of scrub jungle near Cuddappah (now Kadapa) in Andhra Pradesh. In the 19th century, the species was also recorded at several other locations, including the Godavari Valley. It might still occur there and in similar habitats.

The Jerdon’s courser is categorised as “Critically Endangered” by BirdLife International and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resource (IUCN) because it is believed to have a small and declining population. Information on its distribution, population, and habitat requirements is sparse for numerous reasons: its nocturnal habits, the wooded nature of its habitat, its shy habits and extreme rarity. All of these make earlier daylight visual searches unproductive.

When Bharat Bhushan was sent to the potential area near Reddipalli in the Cuddapah district in January 1986, where it was last seen, he met a bird trapper, Aitana, who told him that he had caught the bird in the night. Bhushan made a few searches at night with Aitana but could not locate it.

Aitana was an expert in catching grey francolins, grey junglefowl, red-wattled lapwing, quails, hare, jackals, and an occasional Jerdon’s coursers. He had devised a traditional method, using a buzzer to mask the noise of his footfall and a strong torch to dazzle the animal. A cast net was thrown over the confused animal before it flew/ran away. After many futile searches with Aitana, when Bhushan had almost given up hope of finding the Jerdon’s courser, he got a call from Aitana to rush to his village as he had caught one. With trembling hand, Bharat held the alive but traumatised bird, and rushed to the nearest telephone exchange (mobile phone was unknown then) and excitedly told Mr JC Daniel, then Director of BNHS, and Mr Pushp Kumar, Chief Wildlife Warden of undivided Andhra Pradesh, of the discovery. When the 90-year-old ailing Dr Salim Ali was informed, he insisted he on travelling to Kadapa to see for himself. Soon Mr Daniel and Dr Salim Ali landed in Hyderabad and drove straight to Kadapa with Mr Pusph Kumar. Unfortunately, by the time they arrived, the bird had died. With the kind permission of Mr Pushp Kumar, the specimen was brought to BNHS and preserved. 

It was sensational news covered extensively by the media. And why not? The bird was rediscovered after 86 years. The last confirmed sighting was in 1900. Both Bharat and Aitana became celebrities amongst birdwatchers. The Andhra Pradesh government soon declared a 464 sq-km area in Kadapa district the Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, to protect the Jerdon’s courser’s habitat. 

The Jerdon’s courser was first collected in 1888 by the surgeon-naturalist Thomas Caverhill Jerdon “from the hilly country above the Eastern Ghats off Nellore and in Cuddapah district”. It was described to science by Edward Blyth in 1848 as Macrotarsius bitorquatus, and he named it after Jerdon. In May 1867, William Thomas Blanford, another British naturalist and geologist, sighted this bird “close to Sironchaon the Godavari” which is in eastern Maharashtra. Later, in March 1871, he recorded it near Bhadrachalam, Andhra Pradesh. In 1900, Howard Campbell recorded a Jerdon’s courser near Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. After that, no one had seen it for many decades, so it was considered extinct, notwithstanding Aitana trapping and eating a few individuals in the 1970s and early 1980s! 

The Jerdon’s courser is a small nocturnal courser (c. 27 cm) with large eyes with a brown iris, and a crown. Its hind neck is dark brown with broad whitish supercilium above the eye that loops around the eye and then reaches the neck. Its upper plumage is grey-brown, chin and throat are whitish, fore-neck is rufous and separated from its brown breast by a white band. A second white band runs across the lower portion of its breast (hence it was earlier called double-banded courser). The belly is whitish, while its tail is black-and-white (visible in flight). A white wing bar is also prominent in flight. Its bill is blackish at the tip of both mandibles, but pale yellow at gape and base, as far as the nostrils. Male and female differences are not known, and juveniles are undescribed.

Ever since the Jerdon’s courser was rediscovered, confirmed records have only come from a few sites in and around Sri Lankamaleswara WLS. Soon after the rediscovery, Bhusan conducted a survey in southern Andhra Pradesh. During this survey unconfirmed reports of the Jerdon’s courser were obtained from six places, but it was sighted in two places in the Cuddapah district. Since the 19th century, there has been no record of a Jerdon’s courser from northern Andhra Pradesh.

In 2001, with the help of several UK-based organisations, BNHS started a major project for the conservation of the bird in India. At that time, I was the BNHS Director and needed a young, devoted researcher who could withstand the frustration of searching for this elusive nocturnal bird. My friend Dr Ajith Kumar of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, introduced me to Panchapakesan Jeganathan, who willingly took up this challenge. For the next five years, with the help of Dr Rhys Green of Cambridge University, Dr Ken Norris of The University of Reading, and RSPB scientists, we tracked the bird and found it a few times. I can proudly say that I am perhaps one of the few people in the world who has seen a Jerdon’s courser in the wild. As sighting was difficult and behavioural observations even more so, Rhys and Ken designed a tracking strip with camera traps on either side to detect the bird’s presence. The idea was to catch its tracks(footprints)on fine soil as it moved around in the night. We collected indirect data on its distribution, food (from faecal analysis), recorded its call, and studied its habitat requirements. Like other coursers, it lives in flat, open, lightly grazed areas with scattered shrubs and occasional bushes. Our data were shared with the Forest Department and published in scientific journals. Jegannathan completed his thesis on this rare bird.

In 2005, the construction of an irrigation canal destroyed areas of scrub jungle adjacent to Sri Lankamaleswara WLS, including a newly discovered Jerdon’s courser site. In the late 2000s, the species was detected less regularly at its main site, and the last confirmed record at any site was obtained in April 2008. We took up another project, funded by the Indian government between 2013 and 2015 and deployed 200 Reconyx passively-triggered cameras with infra-red flash, and conducted nine surveys in the scrub forest. Two new students, Sumant Mali and Rahul Chavan, were able to get nearly 107,000 images of 46 species of birds. We caught many animals on camera, even night poachers, but no Jerdon’s coursers. Some birdwatchers have visited Sri Lankamalai Sanctuary since but without luck. Is the species finally extinct? Considering a suitable habitat is still available and improvements in the modern study technology, I hope someday we will again “rediscover” this elusive bird.

Photo source (camera trap), Photo source (call device), Photo source (painting), Photo source (stamp)