"No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent…
Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee."
For Whom the Bell Tolls: John Donne (1572 - 1631)
If you stand quietly on the plains of Africa – you might just hear it. Softly, the sad bells peal their tragic sound. It is the death knell being rung for the critically endangered Liben Lark. This species, listed as critically endangered, is standing at the brink of extinction. It has one foot in the grave. Critically endangered species are those defined as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild within the immediate future.
The Liben Plain comprises an area of less than 3000 hectares of grassland east of Negele. This isolated patch of grassland is home to the Liben Lark, also called the Sidamo Lark, and now considered a subspecies of Archer’s Lark. There are thought to be fewer than 250 individuals of these shy and unobtrusive larks left.
The type locality for the original Archer’s Lark, found in north-west Somalia, was first described in 1920. It had a range of just two square kilometres. This lark has not been seen with certainty since 1955. In the last fifty years there have been at least 15 attempts to relocate it, but none has been successful.
Discovered in 1968, the Liben Lark is poorly known and is under severe threat from agricultural cultivation and overgrazing, and the number of individuals is decreasing. The threats of poverty, population growth and drought have resulted in unsustainable exploitation of the plain by the local Borana community.
My guides informed me that the secret of finding the Liben Lark was to be at their location early in the morning, when males are likely to give their hovering display flight and call before parachuting to the ground. We reached the area about an hour after leaving Negele and stepped out on the plain with high expectations. Two hours later I had ticked Temminck’s Courser, Pied Wheatear, Red-billed Buffalo Weaver, Eurasian Hoopoe and African Pipit – but no Liben Lark. We then headed to another nearby location. Here some young boys who were herding cattle volunteered to run into the veld and flush a Liben Lark. One enthusiastic youngster must have run nearly five kilometres and in the process flushed numerous Somali Short-toed Larks. On one occasion we might have seen a Liben Lark, but it flew away before I could make a positive identification. When the midday sun started to fry our brains, we decided to call it a day. To my intense and deep regret, I did not find the Liben Lark.
So, if you stand quietly on the plains of Africa – you might just hear it. It is the sound of a broken-hearted twitcher crying because he dipped on the Liben Lark.