BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
In February 2026, two French birders in Chad photographed a rusty bush lark. The species had not been recorded in 94 years. It was the most dramatic entry in a year of rediscoveries that have brought the Lost Birds List from 163 species down to 120 since 2022.
The list tracks birds not photographed, recorded, or genetically detected for at least a decade. It is maintained by the Search for Lost Birds project, a partnership between the American Bird Conservancy, Re:wild, and BirdLife International. John Mittermeier, the project’s director, describes it as an “early warning system” for species that might “potentially slip between the cracks” of slower, more formal conservation assessments.
Five birds come back
All five 2025 rediscoveries came from Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and all were made by individual birders and photographers, not formal research teams.
Papua New Guinean ornithologist John Lamaris photographed the Bismarck kingfisher in May 2025, the first record in 13 years. In neighboring Indonesian Papua, Ethan Skinner documented the Biak myzomela, a honeyeater found only on the islands of Biak and Supiori, for the first time in two decades. The broad-billed fairywren turned up in the same region: birder Daniel Hoops and his tour guide Royke Mananta photographed it and recorded its song, 11 years after the last observation.
Two more turned up in the Philippines. Shareef Khaddafi photographed the Sulu cuckooshrike in the Sulu Archipelago, the first image in 18 years. Birding guide Martin Kennewell photographed the rufous-breasted blue flycatcher in the tropical lowlands of Luzon Island, last seen in 2008.
One more potential find is still unconfirmed. Harish Thangaraj recorded sounds he believes belong to Jerdon’s courser, a nocturnal bird from South India that hasn’t been documented in 125 years. Scientists need photographs and additional recordings before they can make it official.
Who is doing the finding
Mittermeier and his team scan public birding platforms each year, including eBird, iNaturalist, and Xeno-Canto, for observations of species on the list. Most of the finds come through those channels. “The most fun part for me of this whole initiative and experience is seeing these discoveries that people around the world are making,” he said.
The list is designed to “fill conservation data gaps” before a species disappears, Mittermeier says, getting ahead of formal assessment systems that take longer to catch up.
One gone, one reclassified
In 2025, scientists declared the slender-billed curlew extinct. Last documented in 1995, the migratory shorebird was steadily worn down by expanding farmland, degraded wetlands, and hunting of a species that reproduced slowly. The declaration means resources stop going toward a bird that is no longer out there.
Genetic analysis removed another species for a different reason. The white-chested tinkerbird from Zambia, known from a single specimen collected in 1964, was reclassified as a subspecies of the yellow-rumped tinkerbird rather than a species of its own.
Mittermeier sees both outcomes as useful. Confirming extinction means “we’re not putting effort into looking for something that isn’t there and doesn’t exist.” Resolving the genetics sharpens what conservation dollars are actually protecting.
Six species added, all on islands
Six new species join the list in 2026, and every one is an island bird. They include the critically endangered Mindoro bleeding-heart, last photographed in 2005, and the Mindoro imperial pigeon, last documented in 2016, both from the Philippine island of Mindoro. Also newly listed are the Guadalcanal honeyeater from the Solomon Islands; the Minahasa shortwing from Sulawesi, Indonesia, one of the world’s few bird species never photographed; the Samoan white-eye from the highlands of Savai’i; and the Vanikoro white-eye from a remote island in the southeastern Solomon Islands.
Island birds have no fallback when conditions deteriorate. They face threats that continental birds can sometimes outrun: invasive predators, rising seas, storms growing more intense as oceans warm. “We know islands are at the forefront of extinction, and so having lost birds on small islands [is] a little bit concerning to me,” Mittermeier said.
The list has dropped by about 25 percent in five years, driven largely by individual birders working through public platforms. That trajectory is what Mittermeier is counting on. “I’m really hopeful that we can get this list down to zero,” he said. “I think that’s feasible … given the power and the interest of this global community.”
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