#sihek

Week 2 of #BirdArtWeekly hosted by @migratorymay and Day 19 of #drawtober#extinctbirds2025 hosted by @smallerdelusions is the Sihek or Guam Kingfisher (Todiramphus cinnamonminus), extinct in the wild on Guam but holding on in captivity.

Day 19 of a#birdtoberclub2025 hosted by @kaylafiskbirds is Smallest in their Family, for which I picked the Little Auk or Dovekie, and this is also my lone post for the og tober challenge #inktober which is #arctic today.

Day 19 of #birdtober2025 hosted by @aholmesartstudio is Red-Footed Booby (including a #ripple for #[email protected] )

Meet the Sihek, Day 19 of the Extinct Bird Drawtober!

Pictured with the Rota Blue Damselfly. Both are native to Guam: a small island in the Western Pacific. Travel to the island post-WWII introduced the brown tree snake who, in absence of natural predators, caused local extinctions of almost every terrestrial animal on Guam. The snakes were so numerous they regularly caused power outages. Almost all bird species disappeared.

Twenty-eight individual Sihek were captured before the species was declared extinct in the wild in 1988. The next forty years saw the species slowly repopulate in captivity. Though the brown tree snakes are not gone from Guam, the island continues to reduce their population. In 2024, the Sihek Recovery Program released nine Sihek on nearby Palmyra Atoll to encourage a new wild population in hopes that they may someday be returned to Guam

From top left corner:

1. Kiritimati sandpiper (day 16)

2. Canary island oystercatcher (day 17)

3. Sihek (day 19) I love this one

4. Night parrot (day 21)

Collection of Sihek.

Guam kingfishers (Sihek) are extinct in the wild, but hopefully not for long! Within a few months, several should be released on the Palmyra atoll by the Sihek Recovery Project, a joint effort of a number of zoos and government organizations.

I've had the privileged of working with Sihek through an internship at one such institution, and through doing video analysis for a study. I love these funky little guys, and I hope they do well in the wild.