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Birdfinding.info ⇒ The Guadeloupe endemic form of House Wren was last observed from May 25 to 29, 1973, when Canadian ornithologist Jon Barlow was exploring a fresh roadcut through the central highlands of Basse-Terre, near the northern edge of what has since become Guadeloupe National Park. He found several individuals near the terminus of the roadcut, and observed from one day to the next as the bulldozers displaced them. These observations occurred four years after a separate rediscovery a few miles farther north at the village of Cacao on February 28, 1969. Prior to these records, the “Guadeloupe Wren” had gone unreported since 1914, and it apparently has not been reported since.
“Guadeloupe Wren” †
Troglodytes aedon guadeloupensis
Endemic to Guadeloupe, but generally believed to be extinct. Inhabits, or inhabited, the understory of mature forest.
Although localized habitat destruction figures prominently in the last reported observations of “Guadeloupe Wren,” significant forest remains in the highlands of Basse-Terre, so this is unlikely to be primary factor in its decline. Instead it almost certainly resulted from the introduction of the mongoose to control rats in the sugar cane plantations, which is also implicated in the extinction of the “Martinique Wren” and the disappearance of many other ground-nesting birds from the Lesser Antilles.
Identification
The upperparts were brown, darkest on the head, with rusty tones on the wings. The underparts were tawny. The bill was yellowish-brown, the eyes were yellow, and the legs were pale.
Notes
Monotypic form, one of ten or so distinct forms of House Wren—or Southern House Wren, when differentiated—some of which may be best regarded as separate species.
References
Barlow, J.C. 1978. Another colony of the Guadeloupe House Wren. Wilson Bulletin 90:635-637.
Brewer, D., and B.K. MacKay. 2001. Wrens, Dippers, and Thrashers. Yale University Press. New Haven.
Hume, J.P. 2017. Extinct Birds (Second Edition). Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London.
Kroodsma, D., D. Brewer, and G.M. Kirwan. 2019. House Wren (Troglodytes aedon). In Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D.A. Christie, and E. de Juana, eds.). Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. https://www.hbw.com/node/58151. (Accessed December 1, 2019.)