The little vermilion flycatcher holds a special place in the imagination of Galápagos: a small bird in intense red plumage, flickering through the vegetation like a spark. But on Cerro Azul volcano, on Isabela Island, the spark had not been seen for decades. There were no confirmed records of the bird there, and some had already written it off for that volcano.
An expedition looking for tortoises
The rediscovery came from where no one expected it. In February 2023, an expedition was systematically surveying different parts of the volcano to monitor giant tortoise populations. The team, made up of park rangers from the Galápagos National Park Directorate and technicians from Fundación Conservando Galápagos, with support from Galápagos Conservancy, obtained 19 flycatcher records: males, females and three fledglings.
Finding adults and fledglings is the best possible news: this is not a single lost bird, but a small population that is breeding and holding on at Cerro Azul.
Where had it been hiding?
For decades there were no confirmed records of the flycatcher on the volcano. Dedicated ornithological searches, such as those in 2018 on the southern slope, failed to detect the species. That is why the researchers believe that, instead of vanishing completely, the bird may have survived in very localized habitats, out of the searches' reach.
The northern slope, a refuge made to measure
The observations concentrated on Cerro Azul's northern flank, a drier area with fewer invasive plants than other parts of the volcano. That condition may favor the flycatcher, by limiting the spread of introduced plant species and, possibly, the incidence of Philornis downsi, a parasitic fly that harms the chicks of several Galápagos land birds.
One island key to its future
The little vermilion flycatcher is endemic to Galápagos and its populations have suffered steep declines: it is now considered extinct on Floreana and Santa Fe, and only a very reduced population survives on Santa Cruz. On Isabela, however, the species remains present on all five volcanoes, a finding that makes the island decisive territory for its conservation.
The study, published in the Journal of Field Ornithology, carries the signatures of Jorge Carrión-Tacuri, Cristian Gil-Jaramillo and James P. Gibbs (Fundación Conservando Galápagos and Galápagos Conservancy), Christian Sevilla (Galápagos National Park Directorate) and Birgit Fessl (Charles Darwin Foundation). The authors point out that this population still needs to be studied to learn its precise size, information that helps guide the management and conservation actions the National Park carries out permanently across Galápagos.