Photo by James Eaton, Birdtour Asia

Scarlet-collared flowerpecker (Dicaeum retrocinctum) is a species of bird in the Dicaeidae family. It is endemic to the Philippines. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

It is a tiny, canopy-dwelling passerine with black upperparts with blue gloss and bright red collar on hindneck, black throat with red central spot, black upper breast, bright red line down center of breast and belly outlined in black.

The rest of its underparts whitish, with long, fine bill. It sings a series of thin, high-pitched, sweet notes and often sings from exposed perches. It is also frequents fruiting trees.

This species occurs within a severely fragmented and declining range, and populations are suspected to be declining rapidly as a result of the destruction of lowland forest. It is therefore listed as Vulnerable.

Threats

Extensive lowland deforestation has occurred on all three islands. In the late 1980s, it was estimated that just 120 km2 of forest remained on Mindoro, with a very small proportion below 1,000 m. On Negros 4% and on Panay 8% of the land area remains forested. Several key sites on Mindoro are threatened. Siburan suffers from encroaching slash-and-burn agriculture by locally resettled people and occasional selective logging. Dynamite blasting for marble is a threat to forest at Puerto Galera.

Conservation Efforts

The forest at Siburan is effectively part of the Sablayan penal colony and is included in the F. B. Harrison Game Reserve. Site-conservation actions and a Forest Management Plan were produced by the local stakeholders for the Sablayan forests (including Mt. Siburan) and these are now being implemented.

More conservation actions are planned for Mt. Siburan with support from Jenzen foundation, EU, CEPF, Body Shop and BirdLife International Species Guardians. IBA Monitoring System was set up in the Mt. Siburan area in May 2007 involving the local partners: LGU Sablayan, DOJ-SPPF, DENR, SASAMAKA (a local NGO) and Haribon Foundation.

Funding has also been provided for conservation initiatives at Puerto Galera and a conservation education programme has been started at Malpalon. It has been recently recorded in Mt Iglit-Baco National Park (Mindoro), the nominally protected North Negros Forest Reserve, the proposed Central Panay Mountains National Park and the Mt Talinis/Twin Lakes area on Negros, which has been proposed for conservation-related funding.