Short-tailed Babbler/ Mourning Babbler
Pellorneum malaccense
NEAR THREATENED
Jalan Bukit Rengit, Lanchang, Malaysia
For this week I thought of returning to the babblers again and this time for the Near Threatened Short-tailed Babbler - now known as the Mourning Babbler. This little beauty was observed and photographed in the forests of Lanchang & Sungai Congkak. I have written about some of the various babblers, warblers, parrotbills, white-eyes, fulvettas, laughingthrushes and their allies from across Asia Pacific in numerous earlier blogs and also a collection of my babblers: Old World Babblers.
The Old World Babblers are a family of mostly Old World passerine birds rather diverse in size and coloration, characterised by soft fluffy plumage. These are birds of tropical areas, with the greatest variety in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The timaliids are one of two unrelated groups of birds known as babblers, the other being the Australasian babblers of the family Pomatostomidae (also known as pseudo-babblers). Morphological diversity is rather high; most species resemble warblers, jays or thrushes.
“This group is among those Old World bird families with the highest number of species still being discovered. ”
In an earlier blog I have included the genus of passerines known as Pnoepyga endemic to southern and south eastern Asia. The Pnoepyga contains five species with its members known as cupwings or wren-babblers and they have long been placed in the babbler family Timaliidae. But a 2009 study of the DNA of the families Timaliidae and the Old World warblers (Sylviidae) found no support for the placement of the genus in either family, prompting the authors to erect a new monogeneric family, the Pnoepygidae.
These are all part of the superfamily Sylvioidea, one of at least three major clades within the Passerida along with the Muscicapoidea and Passeroidea. It contains about 1300 species including the Old World warblers, Old World babblers, swallows, larks and bulbuls. Members of the clade are found worldwide, with fewer species present in the Americas. Some of the families within the Sylvioidea have been greatly redefined. In particular, the Old World warbler family Sylviidae and Old World babbler family Timaliidae were used as waste-bin taxa and included many species which have turned out not to be closely related. Several new families have been created and some species have been moved from one family to another - to the extent that when I took some of these photos I had different names for them to what they are currently named in this article.
The Babbler group:
Paradoxornithidae: parrotbills (37 species)
Zosteropidae: white-eyes (141 species)
Timaliidae: babblers, scimitar babblers (54 species)
Pellorneidae: fulvettas, ground babblers (60 species)
Alcippeidae: Alcippe fulvettas (10 species)
Leiothrichidae: laughingthrushes and allies (133 species)
This list is an extract from the list of 25 families is based on the molecular phylogenetic study published by Silke Fregin and colleagues in 2012 and the revisions of the babbler group by Cai et al (2019) The family sequence and number of species is from the online list of world birds maintained by Frank Gill and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC).
Illustrated in this blog is another one of the Pellorneidae or ground babblers - the Mourning Babbler or the Short-tailed Babbler - I was fortunate to observe and photograph this Near Threatened species in the forests of Bukit Rengit in Malaysia. As always I have some room around the bird to let it breathe and also to provide a glimpse into its typical perches and habitats.
Peninsular Malaysia is home to rich tropical rainforests, with the Titiwangsa mountain range running north to south, some 720 or so bird species are found here some of which I have had the opportunity to photograph and write about. There are numerous destinations like Bukit Fraser, Hulu Langat, Bukit Tinggi, Sungai Congkak and the Lanchang Krau Reserve Forest, the Kuala Tahan National Park and the Sungai Relau National Park, The Mangroves of Matang and the stunning emerald forests and waters of Langkawi.
But today is about this Near Threatened stunner from Bukit Rengit.
Lanchang is a small town in Temerloh District, Pahang, Malaysia, located 32 kms from the town of Temerloh and has a total population of 38,473, with a density of 41,000 km², from the census results of the Malaysian Department of Statistics of Pahang in 2020. The Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Centre is situated in Kampung Orang Asli Sungai Enggang, in Kampung Bolok Hulu, Lanchang, Temerloh, Pahang. This is the main attraction of this small town apart from agriculture and the many projects of both rubber and palm oil plantations. Apart from this, Lanchang is also home to the geographic centre of Peninsular Malaysia, situated in Kampung Paya Siput (Batu 11)(3°29′33″N 102°13′10″E).
Nearby, and almost 50kms from Temerloh, is the area of Bukit Rengit - a mountain located in Terengganu, Malaysia. The elevation above sea level is 111 metres. There is also a waterfall here of the same name. Bukit Rengit is aptly called the land of Trogons because all the lowland species of the Cinnamon, Scarlet-rumped, Diard's and the Red-naped Trogons which can be sighted along the entire stretch of the road leading to the Krau Forest Reserve. Bukit Rengit is also known as the Land of Babblers given the numerous lowland species inhabiting the surrounding forests. The habitat is lowland rainforest and hosts all 4 lowland trogons, all 3 frogmouths, the Rufous-collared Kingfisher, the Banded and Garnet Pittas, Rail Babblers and a whole host of supporting avians like bulbuls, babblers, leafbirds etc.
Given the tremendous variety of birds inhabiting these jungles it is a favourite among birdwatchers from Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. Bukit Rengit is only a short hour and 45 minutes drive from KL. Once in the area, one can hear the calls of the beautiful Great Argus as you walk along the road leading to the Deerland. Sometimes Red Junglefowl fly across the road and numerous birds can be heard like the Greater Coucal, Rhinoceros Hornbills, Red-bearded Bee-eaters, White-rumped Shamas etc.
The Lanchang Krau Reserve is home to an ingeniously constructed hide opposite a log (nicknamed ‘Super-log’ for the number of rare birds it routinely attracts) which threw up a procession of babblers (the Short-tailed featured here, the Black-capped and the Ferruginous) and bulbuls (Hairy-backed, Grey-cheeked and Yellow-bellied).
Read about my other birds from this beautiful habitat. These are but a few I have written about so far.
Short-tailed Babbler/ Mourning Babbler
The "Short-tailed Babbler" was renamed the "Mourning Babbler" because recent taxonomic studies revealed significant vocal and genetic differences between the Short-tailed babbler and other closely related species, like the Glissando Babbler and Leaflitter Babbler, which were previously considered subspecies of the short-tailed babbler, leading to the reclassification and new name "mourning babbler" to distinguish it properly.
The Mourning Babbler (Pellorneum malaccense), previously the Short-tailed Babbler, is a species of bird in the ground babbler family Pellorneidae. It is found in the Malay Peninsula, Anambas Islands, Sumatra, Banyak Islands, Batu Islands, Riau Islands, Lingga Islands and the Natuna Islands. It was formerly considered to be conspecific with the Glissando Babbler (Pellorneum saturatum) and the Leaflitter Babbler (Pellorneum poliogene)
Its natural habitat is tropical moist lowland forests. The species is generally solitary, not joining larger mixed-species flocks, instead foraging as singles or pairs. They forage in the understory on the ground on a variety of insects including beetles, grasshoppers, and ants. Like other babblers they will use their foot to grasp food items, an unusual behaviour for passerine birds.
The Mourning Babbler is locally common at a number of places within its range but is considered Near Threatened due to the loss of lowland forest in its range.
The Short-tailed Babbler is between 13.5–15.5 cm long and weighs about 17.5–28 grams. It is like a small version of the Abbott's Babbler (Malacocincla abbotti), but with very short (often cocked) tail, thinner bill, grayish ear-coverts and blackish moustachial stripe against a strong white throat. The nominate subspecies has a dark ochraceous-brown crown, nape, mantle and a slightly paler back shading to a lightly rufescent rump, with brown upper-wings and a very short tail fringed with chestnut. The face (lores, supercilium, ear-coverts and neck side) is a dull gray, slightly darker under the eye, where it merges into a dark gray or blackish moustachial stripe. The chin, submoustachial area and throat to lower belly is silky white, and the breast side to lower flanks is a pale warm buff. There is. a vague pale warm buff wash across the breast, the iris is red to brown, the maxilla is blackish, mandible is often paler and the tarsi is usually pinkish, sometimes gray. The sexes are similar. The juvenile has a paler brown cap, the sides of the head are tinged brown with rusty outer fringes of primaries, an ochraceous-buff throat. The subspecies poliogene has a slightly more rufescent crown than the nominate and slightly less rufescent wing fringes, rump and tail, more slaty-gray wash on upperparts, and much stronger and darker warm buffy breast wash and flanks.
The following subspecies are recognised:
Short-tailed Babbler (Mourning) Pellorneum malaccense malaccense: Distributed in S Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra (including Riau and Lingga Archipelagos, Banyak and Batu Islands), Anambas Is and N Natuna Is.
Short-tailed Babbler (Glissando) Pellorneum malaccense saturatum: Distributed in Eastern Borneo
Short-tailed Babbler (Leaflitter)Pellorneum malaccense poliogene: Distributed in northeastern Borneo
The Short-tailed Babbler prefers primary broadleaf evergreen forest and secondary growth, drier parts of peat swamp-forest, stream edges, scrub, thickets, older Albizia plantations adjacent to forest, overgrown rubber, sapling bamboo thickets; kerangas pole forest at Similajau National Park (NW Borneo) usually up to an elevation of 1000 m. The Sundaland heath forests, also known as Kerangas forest, is a type of tropical moist forest found on the island of Borneo, which is divided between Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia, as well as on the Indonesian islands of Belitung and Bangka, which lie to the west of Borneo. Their usual diet is Insects, including black beetles (Coleoptera), small grasshoppers (Orthoptera) and ants (Formicidae). They usually forage just above or on the ground, singly or more usually in pairs.
The Short-tailed Babbler is not globally threatened but is currently considered Near Threatened. They are fairly common to common in their continental range. They are common in the Taman Negara National Park, on Peninsular Malaysia and locally common on Borneo, and common in the Danum Valley Conservation Area (Sabah). They are fairly frequent in Berau district forest (E Kalimantan) and also present in Similajau National Park (Sarawak) and common in Tanjung Puting National Park (S Kalimantan). They have also been recorded in Gunung Leuser and Way Kambas National Parks, on Sumatra, frequent in the latter. Also recorded from the now destroyed Padang-Sugihan Wildlife Reserve, in S Sumatra. They are a Sundaic lowland-forest species and are thus highly susceptible to the extensive forest destruction throughout its range, although their ability to survive in second growth and hill-slope forest implies that they are not immediately at risk.
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