The Seychelles Paradise-flycatcher - Terpsiphone corvine - is a rare bird
endemic to the Seychelles.
The males have
two long black central tail feathers and are entirely glossy black with a deep
blue sheen. The upperparts of the females including wings and tail are reddish
brown. The underparts are pale cream white. Facial skin, bill, and legs are
blue.
It lives in the
Veuve Nature Reserve on the La Digue Island, Seychelles, where it inhabits the forest.
The alarm call is
a harsh “szzweet” with a whistled song.
It appears to be
strictly insectivorous and preys on insects in flight or from a perch. It also
feeds on larvae and spiders.
They breed at one
year of age. Nesting was generally believed to be dependent on a proximity to
wetland areas. The oval bowl-shaped nest is built on a branch and consists of
twigs, palm fibre, and spider webs.
Conservation Status - Critically Endangered
Great News -
Nature Seychelles (BirdLife
Partner) and the Seychelles National Park Authority (SNPA) have joined forces
to work on a new project to help protect one of Seychelles iconic bird species
– Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher, Terpsiphone
corvina, locally known as Vev. To formalise this partnership, a
Memorandum of Agreement was signed on 19 October 2011 at the Nature Seychelles
headquarters at Roche Caiman by the CEOs of the two organisations Dr. Nirmal
Shah and Mr. Denis Matatiken. Present at the signing were Mrs Barbara Barallon,
the District Administrator for La Digue the stronghold of the Vev, and Mr.
Flavien Joubert, Director General in the Department of Environment.
The advocacy and education
project, to be carried out on the Island
of La Digue, is part of BirdLife’s Preventing Extinctions Programme and is supported by Viking Optical limited, the species champion who are helping raise the vital
funding needed for the conservation of this bird. It will see work carried out
on La Digue with schools and local communities and will build on the success of
previous projects by helping to engage the local community in activities to
protect the bird.
“Partnerships are crucial for
conservation and have been used to save most of Seychelles endangered birds. The
combined effort of conservation NGOs, government, businesses, and the community
is probably the most powerful tool available to us to address conservation
issues in Seychelles”, said Dr. Nirmal Shah.
“This is a good example of
partnerships between government, NGOs and communities where all stakeholders
are involved in conservation”, said Mr. Matatiken. “Conservation is everyone’s
business and the little that we can all do contributes to the conservation of a
species.”
The project also has the approval
of the La Digue Development Board, an important partner in saving the
flycatcher and its habitats.
The Vev, one of the most
beautiful and iconic birds of Seychelles,
is still Critically Endangered because of its small population and small range limited
mostly to La Digue. It is the only Seychelles
bird still listed as Critically Endangered – Seychelles
Magpie-robin Copsychus
sechellarum, Seychelles White-eye Zosterops modestus, Seychelles Scops-owl Otus insularis and Seychelles
Warbler Acrocephalus
sechellensis have all been downlisted as a result of conservation
action.
A previous collaboration funded
by the Darwin Initiative and which brought together the Durrell Institute of
Conservation and Ecology, Nature Seychelles, the La Digue Development Board,
Denis Island Development Limited, the Ministry of Environment and Natural
Resources and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, resulted in the
successful translocation of 23 birds to Denis Island to create “a safety net”
population there. The translocation succeeded in establishing a second breeding population on the Island of Denis and marked a major milestone in the “Species Action Plan for the Flycatcher,”
aimed at removing it from the endangered list.
The new project will focus on
further enhancing the population on La Digue which is threatened by habitat
loss, invasive alien species and encroaching urbanisation.
