Whilst birding in a thickly-vegetated gully at about 1500m during the pretour scouting for our Bougainville expedition in September 2024, I accidentally flushed a bird which subsequently began making a strange trilling song. I guessed it was Bougainville Island-Thrush, a relatively common and only recently-split endemic species. I recorded the sound before hiding carefully and playing it back. For some time, the bird provided brief glimpses as it moved around in the understory, occasionally singing. Suddenly, it hopped onto a log only two meters in front of my face, almost close enough to touch, and I nearly fell over backwards. It was not a Bougainville Island-Thrush. It was a Bougainville Thicketbird!

This group of seldom-seen skulkers, which range from Timor to Fiji, can nonetheless be extremely inquisitive, and the Bougainville Thicketbird was no exception. After I had run down the mountain to find everybody else, we were treated to an absolutely amazing encounter with this lost bird (which had not been scientifically documented for more than 20 years) as it walked circles around us. Having a brand new sound recording proved key, and during the coming days we would find a total of five territories, and obtain the first photos of the bird in its natural habitat.

More details about this exciting discovery can be read at The Search for Lost Birds.

Bougainville Thickebird (Cincloramphus llaneae) by Joshua Bergmark