Beautiful and Elusive: This Bird Is Losing Its Home | National Geographic

[Music]

My name is Roger Factor. I'm a conservationist working for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Most of my weekend, actually, when I'm not busy doing some other thing on conservation, I'm out bird-watching.

We are inside the Colloforus today, just about 20 kilometers outside of Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon. We are looking for the Great Neck Picket Turtle, which is a very special bird. The Grande Picket Artist looks just like a big pigeon with long legs and a long tail, but have this special feature that the head is very colorful.

It has no feathers on the head but rather has patches of bright red and blue separated by black that goes over the eyes. This actually contrasts very well with the gray back and the yellowish belly. When you happen to spot the bird in the bush, that looks quite nice.

It's the magic about this bird because of its uniqueness; it's not like any other bird. This is a typical nesting site for the Picket Artist. Our first sightings were in 1995. It always started with a bit of mud, then they have to find a crack or crevice where they can actually hang what is starting to put them up.

This part of the mud actually is added all the years; that's what makes the nests big and strong. So they revisit every year. It's hard work; you really have to love this to do it. One thing people have to realize is the attack of the sixth month of the bird to complete such a nest.

We're looking for this bird, and we hope to be able to see it today because it is a very elusive, quiet, and secretive bird. The Green Apricot have this very strict habitat requirement, and they are sensitive to any kind of disturbances.

Finding this bird and having a stable and good population is a good indication that the surrounding habitat may be in good shape.

[Music]

We have one of the best, most important populations of the Green Etiquette Artist in Cameroon, and so close to Yaoundé. There's a high risk and serious pressure coming from land development. It's a typical illustration of illegal logging because this tree has just been felled in front of the cave where the Green Picket Artist has been nesting for the past twenty-four years.

So it's damaging; it's not just that, you know, they're cutting the tree. The opening of the area is putting extra pressure on these bird species. We can understand sometimes that people try to make a living, but this is not the right way of doing this.

There's a need for protecting this forest. You have many, many plants in this that people are using to adapt for medicine or for food. This is the watershed for many of the small rivers around this place, so it paints a watershed, keeping the clean air for the big city.

You can provide a powerful education to the next generation of conservationists and biologists, using this as a laboratory for learning how to better protect and conserve the forests of Cameroon. These forests still have the capacity and the potential to recover if protected.

I hope that people can listen to this and realize the importance of this piece of forest and take the necessary steps to protect it.

[Music]

[Music]