Black-and-Red Broadbill
Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos
Sungai Bantang, Bekok, Malaysia
The Eurylaimidae are a family of suboscine passerine birds that occur from the eastern Himalayas to Indonesia and the Philippines. The family previously included the sapayoa from the Neotropics, the asities from Madagascar, and the Calyptomenidae from Africa, but these are now separated into distinct families. Many of the species are brightly coloured birds that present broad heads, large eyes and a hooked, flat and broad beak. They range from 13 to 28 cms in length, and live in the dense canopies of wet forests, allowing them to hide despite their brightly coloured plumage. The plumage of the juvenile eurylaimids are similar to those of the adults, differing in being duller and shorter-winged and shorter-tailed in some cases. They are for the most part insectivorous and carnivorous.
Eurylaimids feed on a broad variety of insects and invertebrates, especially large orthopterans and mantids, as well as small vertebrates (frogs, lizards, and even fish). Exceptionally, Grauer’s Broadbill (Pseudocalyptomena graueri) appears to be primarily frugivorous. Most broadbills acquire food by gleaning or during short sallying flights from perches.
There are four subfamilies of broadbills: Smithornithinae (typical African broadbills), Calyptomeninae (Asian green broadbills), Eurylaiminae (assorted Asian broadbills) and Pseudocalyptomeninae (Grauer’s broadbill). There are 9 genera and 14 species of broadbills. They are thought to be closely related to pittas (Pittidae) and asities (Philepittidae). They are primarily forest birds and live in rainforests of tropical Asia and Africa. Little is known about the mating behaviour of this group. Some species are thought to be monogamous, others polygynous and some may be cooperative breeders. During displays, many broadbills make a loud trilling sound with their wings that can be heard up to 60 m away. Most species are gregarious. Some species eat primarily insects while others mainly eat fruit.
The strikingly patterned broadbills of Asia are forest canopy birds, often revealed only by their throaty staccato calls. The bold contrasting swatches of black, red, and yellow or green in their plumage often extend into a very large and brightly coloured blue or silver bill, creating a visual impact to equal that of any other passerine in these forests. Their distinctive baglike nests are suspended by a long vine or tendril far beneath overhanging branches, and often over water or near a bee or wasp nest to protect the nest from tree-bound predators. As with the green broadbills, these Asian birds have a cousin in Africa with very different appearance, but we know very little about it.
They attach their purse-shaped nests to suspended vines, and leave a tail of fibres hanging below it. This gives the nest the appearance of being random debris caught in the tree, an effect further enhanced by the birds covering the nest with lichen and spider webs. Talk about camouflage!
Based on banding recaptures, broadbills are estimated to live at least 6 years in the wild. The oldest recorded bird in captivity was 19 years old.
‡‡‡‡‡
Conservation: Six out of 15 species are on the IUCN Red List. Three species are considered Vulnerable and three Near Threatened. With no more than 10,000 individuals each, the vulnerable species all have tiny ranges that are threatened by deforestation, mining activities, and/or guerilla warfare (on Mindanao, Philippines). Deforestation of lowland forest threatens Hose's, White-head's and Black-and-yellow (Eurylaimus ochromalus) broadbills.
Large areas of the wooded habitats of Asia have been harvested or converted to agriculture, creating conservation concerns for four (44%) eurylaimid species (1 NT, 3 VU). The three vulnerable species occupy very restricted ranges in the Philippines or in the Albertine Rift mountains of Africa, and the near-threatened species is limited to three areas in the Malay Archipelago.
‡‡‡‡‡
Read more about the other Broadbills I have photographed.
Sungai Bantang
The Sungai Bantang Recreational Forest, just north of Bekok, Johor allows easy access to the western part of the Endau Rompin National Park. The birdlife here is not well documented as compared to places like Bukit Fraser. Most who come here tend to focus on specific birds like the Crested Jay, Rufous Piculet, Brown Wood Owl, Black and Red Broadbill and the Rufous-collared Kingfisher. But here too there is excellent diversity with more than 80 lowland species documented. It is also where the Bekok Waterfall is. This waterfall falls within the Sungai Bantang Recreational Forest between Labis to Chaah. There are some basic facilities like a car park, public toilets, changing rooms etc. The natural forests in close proximity to the waterfall is ideal for camping. Unlike other waterfalls in the National Park, which require a permit application, entrance via 4wd and a 2 to 3 hour hike through the jungle, the Bekok Waterfall is easily accessed as it is within a few minutes walk from the car park.
The Sungai Bantang Recreational Forest is about a 10 minute drive from the Bekok Railway station and the registration office of Endau-Rompin National Park (Selai Office). For those driving from JB or KL, exit Yong Peng from the North South Highway, then turn left towards Yong Peng and continue staying on route 1 heading north. After passing Yong Peng town and subsequently the town of Chaah, there is a signboard at the 3km marker indicating a right turn towards “Bekok”.
There are numerous birds that can be spotted in these emerald forests like the Verditer Flycatcher, Chestnut-naped Forktail, Drongo Cuckoo, Black-bellied Malkoha, Whiskered Tree Swift, Crested Serpent Eagle, Black-thighed Falconets, Maroon Woodpecker, Brown-backed Needletail, Blue-rumped Parrot, Red-bearded Beeeater, Purple naped spiderhunter. Little Spiderhunter, the various Jungle Babblers - Rufous-crowned, Grey Headed and Horsfield's - and the stunning Rufous-collared Kingfisher.
Black-and-Red Broadbill
The Black-and-Red Broadbill (Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos) is a bird in the typical Broadbill family Eurylaimidae. A large, distinctive bird with maroon underparts, black upperparts, a maroon neck-band and white bars on the wings - it is the only species in the genus Cymbirhynchus. It also has a large, two-colored, blue-and-yellow bill. The species shows slight sexual dimorphism, with females being smaller than the males. No other bird in its range resembles it, though the Black-and-Yellow Broadbill has a similar call - an ascending trill-like song, but the equivalent vocalization of the Black-and-Red species is shorter and much slower.
The species is found in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Inhabiting lowland riparian forest throughout its range, it can also adapt quite well to disturbed habitat, such as secondary forest growth and degraded habitat near rivers. The Black-and-Red Broadbill is mainly insectivorous, supplementing its diet with aquatic creatures like mollusks, fish and crustaceans. It also takes leaves and seeds.
It is an utterly unmistakable inhabitant of waterside and riverine lowland evergreen forests, mangroves, and plantations. Midnight black with long white slashes on each wing as you can see in the photos here, wine-red underparts, and a black chinstrap. The bulbous bill is glowingly powder-blue with warm tinges of orange and greenish-yellow. During the breeding season, the pendulous nests of this species can be quite obvious, hanging over forested waterways. Their voice is nasal and generally unpleasant-sounding, consisting of odd low mechanical rasps.
The Black-and-Yellow Broadbill and the Banded Broadbill are most closely related to a clade formed by the Black-and-Red (featured here) and Silver-breasted Broadbills, and all three genera form a sister clade to the genus Sarcophanops. This clade is sister to one formed by the Long-tailed Broadbill and Dusky Broadbill. Both of these clades are sister to Grauer's Broadbill. An earlier 2006 study by Robert Moyle and colleagues also found strong support for these relationships, but did not sample the Wattled Broadbill.
Although quite common, and tolerant of degraded habitats, being confined to the lowlands (principally below 300 meters) where forest destruction has been particularly widespread, the Black-and-Red Broadbill has declined precipitously in parts of its range. Only one subspecies, affinis of southwestern Myanmar, is well differentiated (even being treated as a separate species by one recent taxonomic checklist); the others are all very similar and display somewhat clinal variation, meaning that further research may determine them to be invalid.
In the adult Black-and Red Broadbill the head and upper parts are black, the latter with a greenish sheen, separated from the black breastband by a maroon-red half-collar. The rump and upper tail coverts are a bright maroon. The upperwing coverts are black with a glossy blue-green sheen to the edges of the feathers. The scapulars are elongated and pointed, largely pure white on their outer webs; on the closed wing, these form a long white line from near the wing bend to halfway along the folded tips of the secondaries. The remiges are blackish with a concealed white bar at the base of the inner webs of all but the outermost two primaries, and broad white basal bar along the edge of the outer web of the secondaries. A narrow bright orange-yellow line at bend of wing is usually visible at close range. The under parts are well demarcated: the throat and chin are dull black, breastband glossy black; and rest of underparts are maroon-red. The adults of all subspecies occasionally display orange-yellow blotches on the flanks and belly, sometimes also on the rump and ear coverts. The tail feathers are blackish, and strongly graduated, sometimes with a white patch on the terminal part of the inner web of the outermost 1–2 pairs of rectrices. The females are separable only by their slightly smaller size and the Juveniles are much duller than the adult. The upperparts of the juvenile are sooty brown with scattered black markings and reddish-maroon patches on the rump and upper tail coverts. From a young age, the black breastband is well developed, attaining its greenish gloss before the upperparts become black. The underparts are brown, with red feathers gradually molting through, initially on the lower throat and the center of the lower breast to belly. The wings are brown, but with the orange leading edge of adults, and white patches on the outer webs of the scapulars, but not pointed or elongated like those of the adult. The Immatures are only distinguishable from adults by the browner upperwing coverts, tertials and remiges, and by the presence of white spots at the tips of the median coverts, forming two diffuse lines on the closed wing. Younger immatures also typically have browner throats, chin, and ear coverts, while the upperparts still lack the greenish gloss of adults.
The Black-and Red Broadbill has a bill large with a slightly hooked tip: maxilla bright turquoise-blue, mandible yellow-orange with blue cutting edges and tip, bordered by a narrow line of greenish. Has quite well-developed rictal bristles (20–25 mm) at base of bill. Bill of juvenile is much duller: maxilla blackish with a dirty bluish base, the mandible brownish blue, and inside of mouth is bright orange. In adults, the iris is a vivid emerald green, but in juveniles it is bronze. Wells describes the color of immature males’ irises as purple with a blue inner ring. Another identifier are their tarsi and toes - bright blue in adults, sometimes tinged violet, while those of juveniles are a duller blue gray.
The overall length of the bird is between 21–24 cm with a wing length of 100–108 mm, a tail length of 83–94 mm and the bill length of 30.5–33.0 mm (presumably measured to skull). The bill width is between 18.5–22.0 mm and the tarsus 23.0–25.5 mm. Birds from Cat Tien National Park (Vietnam) weighed 51–65 g while those from the Malay Peninsula weighed - adult males 53.0–63.3 g; adult females 53.4–55.2 g. Lambert and Woodcock suggested a broader mass range for the species (sample size unknown) of 50.0–76.5 g.
The Black-and-Red Broadbill is almost universally treated as a single species. However, taxon affinis was separated as a full species by del Hoyo and Collar, on the basis of it being smaller (sample size small, but score 2, following Tobias et al. criteria), with elongate crimson spots on the wings, much paler red underparts and especially rump, which also has narrow black edging, small but clear white flash in wing, and broader white tips to tail. Subspecific taxonomy needs further study. Peters accepted six subspecies, whereas Medway and Wells and Lambert and Woodcock maintained just four — nominate, affinis, malaccensis, and lemniscatus — in the process rejecting C. m. tenebrosus from southern Sumatra, and siamensis of Indochina south to Peninsular Malaysia on account of an absence of discrete plumage or biometric characters. As hinted by Lambert and Woodcock, subspecies lemniscatus of Sumatra is ‘very poorly differentiated,’ and it is synonymised with the nominate subspecies here, but siamensis is still recognized. Considerable geographic variation makes drawing accurate subspecific limits rarely possible. In general, size increases, and the amount of white in the tail decreases, from north to south (presumably clinally). The following subspecies are recognised:
Black-and-red Broadbill (Irrawaddy) Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos affinis: These are confined to southwest Myanmar, in the Irrawaddy Delta, Arakan Yomas, and South Arakan, especially on small islands and along the coast. Few recent records, making its current status is rather uncertain. Compared to nominate, these exhibit a smaller (wing length 88–93 mm, versus 96–111 mm), with long crimson spots on the innermost secondary and outer webs of the next two, a more conspicuous white wing spot that extends onto both webs, broader white tail bars (extending to all but the central pair), and is overall paler red on the underparts and rump, the latter feathers of which are narrowly edged black. No other published measurement data.
Black-and-red Broadbill (Black-and-red) Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos [macrorhynchos Group]
Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos siamensis: Distributed from Tenasserim (southern Myanmar), northernmost Peninsular Malaysia (Perlis and Phatthalung) and southern Thailand, east into Cambodia, southern Laos, and southern Vietnam. Very similar to subspecies malaccensis but said to be shorter winged and to have on average more tail feathers tipped white. Measurements: wing of male (n = 20) 97–101 mm; wing of female (n = 25) 91–100 mm.
Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos malaccensis: Endemic to the Thai-Malay Peninsula, from Kedah, Yala, and Narathiwat (in extreme southern Thailand) south; formerly also in Singapore. The red of the plumage is marginally paler than nominate, with some orange-yellow spotting on the belly. White bar on the inner webs of the tail feathers is usually well defined, although sometimes restricted to the outer feathers. Slightly smaller than nominate, but larger than siamensis. Measurements: wing of male 100–105 mm; wing of female 98–102 mm.
Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos macrorhynchos: Widespread on Borneo and Sumatra, as well as some of their offshore islands including Bangka, Belitung, and Pulau Laut.
Related Species
Collectively, all of the Broadbills, including the Neotropical Sapayoidae, the Asian and African Calyptomenidae, and the Malagasy Philepittidae, form a well-supported clade, which is sister to the Pittidae, together comprising the Old World suboscine radiation (with Sapoyoa Sapayoa aenigma the sole New World representative). Both just-mentioned studies also found Eurylaimidae (as defined here) to be sister to Philepittidae, and the relationships within the genus to be as follows: Pseudocalyptomena is sister to the remaining Asian genera, which form two main clades, one of which is composed of Cymbirhynchus, Eurylaimus, Sarcophanops, and Serilophus, and the second includes Psarisomus and Corydon. In their study, Moyle et al. recovered Black-and-red Broadbill as being most closely related to Silver-breasted Broadbill (Serilophus lunatus), and these two species were sister to the Eurylaimus broadbills.
The following cladogram shows phylogenetic relationships among the Eurylaimidae:
Grauer's Broadbill (Pseudocalyptomena graueri)
Long-tailed Broadbill (Psarisomus dalhousiae)
Dusky Broadbill (Corydon sumatranus)
Wattled Broadbill (Sarcophanops steerii)
Silver-breasted Broadbill (Serilophus lunatus)
Black-and-red Broadbill (Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos)
Banded Broadbill (Eurylaimus javanicus)
Black-and-yellow Broadbill (Eurylaimus ochromalus)
The Black-and-Red Broadbill occurs in southern Indochina, including southern Vietnam; in Cochinchina and South Annam; southwest, northern, and northeast Cambodia; and southern Laos. In Myanmar, occurs in two populations: in the southwest and in Tenasserim, the latter contiguous (at least formerly) with populations in southern Thailand and the Malay Peninsula, where it is widespread and which is where I have seen and documented it too. It occurs throughout Sumatra, including the satellite islands of Bangka and Belitung. It is also widespread on Borneo including Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, and Kalimantan. While no significant range contractions have been reported, the species evidently was quite common in Singapore until the 1940s, after which it remained unrecorded until 2004. Furthermore, the species seemingly has experienced quite severe local extinctions in peninsular Thailand and probably elsewhere.
The Black-and-Red also exhibits a strong affinity for riparian habitats preferring lowland forest near rivers and streams, including evergreen and semi-evergreen forest, mixed dipterocarp forest, riverine forest, swamp forest of various types, nipah, and mangroves. They are also found in plantations near water, including rubber estates and Albizia, as well as locally in villages and gardens. They will persist in secondary forest in logged areas, provided some scattered tall trees remain, and in lower secondary vegetation with clumps of open forest in pastureland. They can also survive in disturbed habitats, even seriously degraded areas along rivers and range to 300 m over most of its range; locally to 900 m in Sumatra on Mt. Dempu, as well as in Borneo.
The Black-and-Red is principally insectivorous, but have been recorded eating all manner of small riverine animals including mollusks, snails, crustaceans, and small fish and prey are typically seized from the ground and water’s edge. But in general their dietary habits are poorly documented.
They are also notably less vocal than other Asian Broadbills, but here too they are rather poorly studied. They are often silent, with calls quieter than those of most Eurylaimids. The most frequently heard call in Laos was an accelerating series of parnk notes, likened to the sound made by the wingbeats of Wreathed Hornbill (Rhyticeros undulatus). Other calls include grating notes as if from a cicada (Cicadidae), which is thought to be given in advertisement, as well as churring calls, melodious whistles, a monotonous repeated tyook, and a rasping wiark. Also utters an ascending trill like that of Black-and-Yellow Broadbill (Eurylaimus ochromalus) but shorter, much slower, softer, and quieter. And when in alarm, they have been heard to give a rapid series of pip notes.
Breeding biology is rather well known in comparison to other Asian Broadbill species, although most data stem from studies and anecdotal observations in Malaysia with, for example, almost no published information from Indochina or southwest Myanmar. From Peninsular Malaysia, most nest records are in the driest months (January–August). While Lambert and Woodcock postulated that this is likely an adaptive preference to reduce the chance of water level rise inundating nests, Wells suggested that such a claim would require far more data that take into account the regional climate variations found throughout the peninsula. Dates of egg clutches on the peninsula span late February to mid-August. In southeast Thailand, nests with eggs have been found in May and June, while in Tenasserim (Myanmar), nests with young have been observed between April and June, with a single record of a nest containing four eggs on 25 February. Available data for the Greater Sunda Islands also suggest a preference for breeding in the driest months: On Borneo, nests have been found between December and August, while on Sumatra, eggs have been collected between March and June, which also correlates to a drier part of the year. There are apparently few published nesting data from Indochina: an adult in Cochinchina (Vietnam) was flushed from a nest in June, while an occupied nest in southern Laos was observed in May, both at the end of the local dry season.
The Black-and-Red Broadbill is not globally threatened and is listed as Least Concern. It is recognized as two species by BirdLife International, Black-and-Red Broadbill (C. macrorhynchos) and the monotypic Irrawaddy Broadbill (C. affinis) and both are considered Least Concern under IUCN criteria. Some populations are relatively secure, occurring in several protected areas, e.g., Nam Bai Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam, Taman Negara National Park and Panti Forest in Peninsular Malaysia, Gunung Leuser and Way Kambas National Parks on Sumatra, and Similajau and Tanjung Puting National Parks on Borneo.
Throughout its range, it was formerly very common to abundant, but the species has decreased considerably, especially in its northern range, in response to lowland deforestation. However, this broadbill’s tolerance of logged areas and second growth makes it unlikely to be under immediate threat. It is no longer common in Thailand, despite reportedly being abundant along rivers in the early 20th century and it is now considered the scarcest species of broadbill there. Also scarce over most of Indochina (where it was first recorded in Laos as recently as the early 1990s), but now known to be locally numerous, even in degraded forest, e.g., in southern Laos and Cambodia. In Myanmar, C. affinis is believed to still be reasonably common where suitable habitat remains (including well-vegetated gardens), especially in coastal areas and on small offshore islands, but very few data or recently published observations are available to confirm this.
‡‡‡‡‡
‡‡‡‡‡
Related Posts
