The Rockfowl (or the Picathartes) of Africa are strange, elusive and wonderful
birds. There are two species: the Gray-necked Rockfowl (or Red-headed Picathartes)
Picathartes
oreas in central Africa near the Gulf of Guinea, and the White-necked
Rockfowl (or Yellow-headed Picathartes) P. gymnocephalus of west
Africa. I cannot show you photos of either one but I can show you the
cave
used as a nesting and roosting site by Gray-necked Rockfowl in Gabon (left;
that's Patrice Christy -- Gabon's premier field ornithologist -- in the
foreground; the cave is the black area above and left of him, crossed by
the bare whitish limb). On a special expedition to this cave on 14 July
1996 we did have quick views of two picathartes hurtling out the far left
corner; I made a rough pencil sketch of the experience that evening
(below). I look forward to the day when I'm able to enjoy more leisurely
views but this will suffice for now. [Update:
You can now see some great photos of Gray-necked Rockfowl at a breeding
cave in Cameroon HERE.
There are many pages in your choice of French or English, and the photos
speak for themselves.]
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| The taxonomic position of the Picathartidae remains a puzzle. In past decades they were often tossed into the babbler assemblage, but its humerus is corvine and DNA work suggests its closest relatives are the rockjumpers (Chaetops) of South Africa (Sibley & Alquist 1990). Sibley & Monroe (1990) lumped the rockfowl with the rockjumpers in a single family, but there is little support for this position. Even if they are each other's closest relatives, the Picathartidae deserve separate family ranking, a position which will be followed by the on-going the Birds of Africa handbook series (S. Keith, pers. comm.). They may well be the remnants of an archaic avian order. |
Current information about the taxonomy, identification, and biology of Rockfowl is nicely summarized in Thompson & Fotso (1994) which includes a fine color plate of both species by Mark Andrews. There are also sidebars to the article by Peter Wood & Peter J. Dolton about how to see the two mythical avians. Recently, Mark Andrews sent me this wonderful painting (left) of a calling Gray-necked Rockfowl; © 2001 Mark Andrews, used with permission, all right reserved. As you can see, this is a long-legged, long-tailed lanky bird with a bare crown (the red hind-crown and blue forehead are bare skin). My field notes recorded this impression: "they were almost as large as a Gr. Roadrunner (maybe Lesser Roadrunner size? none around to compare.... duh) and had long neck & long tail" in flight. Rockfowl hunt on the forest floor like ground-cuckoos and like them are very shy and elusive. Yet they nest and roost in caves, building thick mud platters that are stuck to the inside cave walls like huge Barn Swallow nests (Patrice Christy showed us used nests at La Lopé Reserve in south-central Gabon... this is an area that is usually not shown on range maps but which is inhabited by a stable population... just more evidence of how little is known about these birds). |
| I consider the two rockfowl to be the "best birds" in Africa. Certainly there is high interest in them by globe-trotting birders, many of whom have tried to see one or other and have failed. In the first issue of the African Bird Club Bulletin, two competing professional tour companies took out full page ads about their African itineraries, one featuring the "Yellow-headed Rockfowl" and the other the "Gray-necked Picathartes." [Obviously there is no universal agreement on even the English name of these birds, with "Rockfowl" and "Picathartes" used almost interchangeably, and with the alternative descriptive specific names attached seemingly at random!... and I don't really have a preference, they all work equally well.] |
It is still difficult to see a Picathartes. That is one reason they remain
such highly sought after wraiths. To see the birds we saw, first we had
to get to Gabon and then to the bird's habitat (not an easy task; Gabon
is a French-speaking country with primitive infrastructure). From Makokou,
which as far as the "main" road goes in northeastern Gabon, one must drive
several more hours on secondary routes (i.e., narrow mud roads), passing
through several police checkpoints. Once, while getting our papers cleared,
we could hear a government official lecturing the locals about the dangers
of killing or eating wild gorillas or chimpanzees (there had been a recent
Ebola
outbreak near here, traced to a feast on a dead chimpanzee). From the village,
after obtaining permission from the tribal chief, one must cross a lowland
swamp (left; that's Patrice helping my partner Rita Carratello through
the muck while Ian Sinclair and Bill Bouton look on from behind), hike
several miles through cut-over and then mature forest, finally up a steep
slope to the rocky outcroppings that contain the rockfowl cave. Seeing
them with a group is still quite difficult. We were instructed to settle
quietly at the spot from which the top photo was taken while Patrice &
Ian walked to the other end of the cave, causing the birds to depart from
the opposite corner as quickly and stealthily as they could.
Our visit was timed when there was no breeding activity underway, so we were fortunate that two individuals were day-roosting in the cave. Patrice and Ian's experience is that they will return within a couple hours, and although some of us waited for quite some time, they did not reappear. It was wonderful to see rockfowl in the wild, and yet I was concerned that too much disturbance would cause the birds to abandon the cave. This has happened at some prior sites. We learned that local villagers fortunately do not generally disturb these birds, although an occasional one is killed by locals netting bats (which roost in the same cave in the thousands... one smells bat guano once you are near the cave). So the birds are disturbed from time to time on a regular basis by villagers, and this level of disturbance has not impacted them in decades. Yet I am concerned that adding a level of pressure from visiting bird-watchers would be detrimental. You may note I'm carefully avoiding stating much more than "northeastern Gabon" as a locality; if you want to see this bird, join a tour and do not disturb the birds on your own. Unregulated access could be problematic for survival in this threatened species. The tours (at least so far) limit their visits to no more than once a year or so. As you might imagine from this summary, photographs of wild Picathartes are quite rare (but see the link I give at the top of the page!); an in-hand photo of a captured bird appears in color in Bowden & Andrews (1994) in their article on Mt. Kupe, Cameroon (a spot which has rockfowl but at which they are more often missed by tour groups than seen). A great photo by Alec Forbes-Watson of an adult White-necked Rockfowl flying to its nest with food for two begging young is in Colston & Curry-Kindahl (1986; p. 78). |
| Bibliographic note:
There is no "family book" but a very nice current summary (with color plate) is in Thompson & Fotso (1995). The newest volume in the Birds of Africa series (Fry et al. 2000) also includes much updated information. Literature cited: Bowden, C. G. R., and S. M. Andrews. 1994. Mount Kupe and its birds. Bull. African Bird Club 1: 13-18.TOP |