The Inaccessible Island Rail
It's that bird content you crave...
The Inaccessible Island Rail, an absolutely precious little rascal and the only member of genus Atlantisia, is the smallest flightless bird remaining on this shitty planet. Rails are a weirdly ill-defined family of ground-living birds - they can be found on every continent except for Antarctica, most live in wetlands or on islands but not all, some can fly and some cannot, I don’t know I’m sure some egghead scientist can explain their common traits but I’m not a loser, I have a life, I have better things to do than understand a bird.
Like many of our tiniest critters, the Inaccessible Island Rail’s miniature size is the result of evolving in the context of a cramped and isolated island. Unlike every other small, flightless bird, the IIR has survived because no large predators have ever been introduced to Inaccessible Island.
Do you know why they call it Inaccessible Island? Because it’s located in the dead center of the Atlantic between South America and Africa:
And because it’s damn near impossible to do a clean sea landing on:
Upside of that is it means sailors never introduced to the island the housecats, the animal that killed off innumerable native species on other remote islands during the age of global slavery and genocide otherwise known as “The Era of Exploration.”
Even today there’s apparently not much to see or do on Inaccessible Island other than seek out our tiny friend - which you’ll probably fail at. According to Wikipedia, it took 50 years between naturalists first encountered the bird, in 1872, and when it was finally identified and confirmed as a unique species, in 1923. Between then many expeditions failed to snag even one.
That name really is fascinating though isn’t it, like an open challenge declared by title. What on Earth can actually be described as truly “Inaccessible” in our current era - maybe the interior of a volcano and some portions of the deep ocean? Inaccessible Island is technically part of United Kingdom territory, because I guess every inch of land has to belong to someone now, and can you really call a place inaccessible if it’s been mapped, studied, and placed under dominion?
If you really want to visit, you can take a trip out of the evocatively named Edinburgh of The Seven Seas, a remote village located on the nearby island of Tristan da Cunha. As of January 2020, there are 266 residents, and you can hire a boat, and as you wait for your ride, you can burn a few hours at The Prince Philip Hall and Albatross Bar. It’s the only watering hole in town, on the island, on the archipelago. This is where you will have your drink, and think about small birds, and the cruel history of human exploration, and wait to be taken to Inaccessible Island:
