Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Again I present you with a scene that perhaps no humans will ever see again. This is a couple of Himalayan Quails, Ophrysia superciliosa. The genus and species name both refer to their prominent white eyebrows ('ophrys' = eyebrow in Greek and 'supercilium' = eyebrow in Latin). This quail species was last recorded for certain in 1876 and despite many intensive searches has never been seen again. It is thus likely extinct, never to exist on this planet again. My goal with portraying extinct species is not to make you feel sad or depressed, but to commemorate them. This planet was their home, too, they were a part of its rich tapestry of life. We need to realize that this planet actually hosted a far greater diversity of living things than what remains at present. We should appreciate the near boundless potential for different forms and ways in the realm of life.

Himalayan quails were small, quail-like partridges. They were unique enough to be awarded their own genus, in which no remaining species survive. Their closest remaining relatives are the four species of Asian Bush-quail in the genus Perdicula. The male Himalayan quail was very distinctive with his black head with prominent white eyebrows and white marks on the face and cheeks. His forehead feathers were rather bristly. His body was dark greyish with black streaks. The female was much more subdued, coloured brownish overall with darker and lighter streaking that made her blend in well with the dry grass amongst which they lived. The male in turn would have looked like a dark stone. Both sexes had red bills and legs, and tails longer than those of most other quails. They reached an overall length of 25 cm/10".

These quails first came to the attention of European scientists in 1846, when J. E. Gray described it from living birds kept by the 13th Earl of Derby (his entire bird collection later gifted to the city of Liverpool). Many of the Brits during those old colonial days collected animals and plants from their various colonies. But the birds were not located in nature until 1865. From then until 1876 only a few more were found. The species now exists basically as a few museum skins and stuffed specimens.

In life, Himalayan quails inhabited tall grassland with some bush and tree growth on steep hillsides, mainly on south- and east-facing slopes. They were only ever recorded around two locations in the Lesser Himalaya Mountains, at altitudes between 1650 m/5500' and 2400 m/8000'. Both of these sites are in India, in the state of Uttarakhand. They seem to have lived in coveys of 6-10 birds. Their dense, fluffy body feathers would have kept them warm during the cold mountain nights. Like other quails, they skulked about the tall grass trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible. And their steep mountain habitat was also one where most predators like foxes, wolves or cats would have difficulty manoeuvring. They likely fed mostly on grass seeds, perhaps with some berries and insects. They would walk and run away from danger rather than fly, except once you're virtually on top of them, when they'll suddenly 'explode' into flight. This strategy, present in many partridges and quails, is meant to startle a potential predator enough to give them a chance to escape.

Some people think these quails might have been migrants. Northern India has a seasonal climate, and it can get cold in winter especially high up in the mountains. Many Himalayan bird species move down the mountain slopes in the winter, since the air becomes warmer as you go lower in altitude. Most known specimens of this quail species were found in November and December (one was found in June). It is therefore possible that they arrived there in the winter, having come from a summer breeding range even further in the north and higher up in the mountains. All we know is that they had fairly short wings, and so were unlikely to cover very large distances. But they might have been short-distance migrants, just going as far south and down as necessary. But since we can't study living birds, we can't confirm these movements.

What caused this quail's extinction? One possibility is that it was already a rare species and on its way out when first discovered. It might have evolved in the Ice Ages, when cooler climates meant that it could live much lower down, where a lot more suitable habitat would be found. As the world warmed up, they went higher up the mountains to stay in the cool climate they preferred, but there is less high-lying land than low land and so their habitat shrunk. At the time they were found they might have been squeezed into a final small patch, too small to sustain a viable population.

But then, India has also experienced massive population growth, having already been very populous in the nineteenth century. Indeed the population growth started in the eighth century, with many people moving towards the mountains to flee from Muslim invaders from the north. Very large areas of wild country has been destroyed to make way for farms, towns and all other kinds of human developments. Also, quails and other partridge-like birds have always been favoured as food, and the introduction of firearms made killing them much easier. It might be that the quails were at the end of a human-caused decline when first recorded, this decline sending them over the brink not much later.

But we may ask if this species is indeed extinct after all. Being a small, unobtrusive bird, it will always be difficult to find and record. Much of the Himalayan mountains are very rugged and difficult to enter let alone explore. We still are not sure where the exact breeding range of these quails were or may still be. Despite the negative outcome of many searches for these birds, it may be that there are still one or two small populations left of them. Consequently, the species is not officially listed as extinct, instead having the category of critically endangered. Still, with almost a century and a half of no living birds seen, hope of their continued existence has to be very slim.

Willem

21.09.20 Front Page

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