White-winged Flufftail

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Toko
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White-winged Flufftail

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BirdLife South Africa
White-winged Flufftail (Sarothrura ayresi)

This elusive and poorly known species has a fragmented distribution, a small population and specific habitat requirements. The White-winged Flufftail is only known to occur in high altitude wetlands in South Africa and Ethiopia. It is severely threatened by habitat destruction and degradation, including wetland drainage, agriculture, water abstraction, overgrazing by livestock and cutting of marsh vegetation. It is listed as Critically Endangered in The Eskom Red Data Book of Birds of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland (Barnes 2000).

Despite a number of studies by conservationists in South Africa and Ethiopia, little is known about the White-winged Flufftail’s biology. It is important, for example, to understand this flufftail’s habitat requirements and obtain data on population size, distribution, movements, genetics, etc. There is also a pressing need to protect the wetlands which are used by this species.

Wetlands are one of the most threatened habitats in South Africa and water is one of South Africa's scarcest resources. At present many water resources are polluted by industrial effluents, domestic and commercial sewage, acid mine drainage, agricultural runoff and litter.


Fact sheet

Each year a Bird of the Year is chosen by Birdlife South Africa and, in sharp contrast to the species selected in previous years, 2013's bird of the year is one that is rarely seen and is little known. The White-winged Flufftail is, in fact, a complete enigma; it is a wetland species that occurs in South Africa and Ethiopia, but essentially nowhere inbetween; it makes erratic appearances here and there, lingering a while at some wetlands, moving on at others, and its presence is only ever detected when it is put to flight and gives a fleeting view as it speeds away on whirring wings before dropping back out of sight into the vegetation.

DESCRIPTION
White-winged Flufftails are small, mouse-like birds weighing a mere 30-35 grams, with streaked, brownish plumage, a rusty head, chest and tail, a wingspan of about 16 cm, and broad white secondary wing feathers that briefly render them conspicuous in flight.
The bird became known to science in 1877 from two birds that were collected in 1869 in the marshes alongside the Mooi River at Potchefstroom by Thomas Ayres who was a skilled naturalist making a living by collecting natural history specimens for overseas museums. It was named after him - Sarothrura ayresi - and was known for many years as Ayres' Crake or Ayres' White-winged Crake.
It is one of nine flufftail species, a family related to crakes and rails, and all are small, secretive, ground-living birds that typically reveal their presence by their ghostly hooting calls. Whereas the calls of the other species are well-known, there is much confusion about
the calls of the White-winged Flufftail, and this compounds the inherent problem of finding
and learning more about the birds.

STATUS
The White-winged Flufftail is one of South Africa’s five “Critically Endangered” bird species, and is the focus of BirdLife South Africa’s conservation attention.
This poorly known species has a highly fragmented distribution, a small population and specific habitat requirements. The White-winged Flufftail is only known to occur in high altitude wetlands in South Africa and Ethiopia.

HABITAT
White-winged Flufftails have rather specific habitat needs. Most of the seasonally flooded wetlands in the Ethiopian highlands where the birds nest are subject to intense, sustained grazing pressure and it seems that many areas are rendered unsuitable for the birds because of this. Here they favour stretches of grass and sedge standing about knee-height in ankledeep water. In South Africa, by contrast, the wetlands used by these flufftails are permanently or semi-permanently wet, and they are typically sponges located near the headwaters of rivers in the eastern highveld, wet underfoot, and dominated by the sedge
Carex acutiformis, a broad-leafed plant that forms a closed canopy about 1-1½ m high above the ground layer of damp ground or shallow water. The presence or absence of the birds here seems linked to water-level (they are absent when it is too deep or too dry), to when a fire last swept through, and to grazing pressure. Much, however, remains to be learnt about this bird's habitat requirements and guesswork needs to be replaced by fact.

CONSERVATION
The Middelpunt Wetland Trust was established in 1994 with an initial objective of securing and rehabilitating a wetland on a farm called Middelpunt lying between Belfast and Dullstroom in Mpumalanga. At the time this wetland was one of only three sites in the country where White-winged Flufftails were known to occur, and it had been recently drained. Following the rehabilitation of this wetland and securing it on a long-term lease, the trust commenced surveys for the birds in other wetlands and then extended its concern to wetlands in Ethiopia. BirdLife South Africa took over the administration of the trust in 2012 and israising the profile of this critically endangered bird and mapping out a conservation plan for the species that includes establishing a captive population on which detailed behavioural and ecological studies can be undertaken.

Fact sheet - Download PDF


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