Reader Duncan McCaskill contributed some photos Australian birds. His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Here are some photos of some small Australian birds.
New bird watchers find Little Brown Birds (LBBs) frustratingly difficult to identify. Here in Australia, the LBBs are mostly members of the family Acanthizidae (Australian Warblers), and within that family, it’s particularly the thornbills (genus Acanthiza) that give new birders grief. I live in Canberra and there are 5 species of thornbill that occur in the region. They are all quite common. As can be seen from the photos, most are not brown, nor are they difficult to identify if—and that’s a big if—you can get a good look at them. They are all small, very active, and often hidden in vegetation. Most experienced birders rely more on calls to identify them.
Most of the photos were taken in the Canberra region.
A Striated Thornbill (Acanthiza lineata). They spend most of their time in the canopy, so in tall forests the most you usually see are occasional tiny hyperactive dots. Sometimes they will be lower down feeding in the canopy of small saplings and shrubs. Their high-pitched insect like tsip calls can be hard to pick out.
A Striated Thornbill in a eucalypt sapling
A Brown Thornbill (Acanthiza pusilla). An LBB that is actually brown. Just to make life difficult for birders, even experienced ones, they have a highly variable range of calls, including calls that sound very much like other species that may be hiding in the foliage with them. They also mimic the calls of other species, including other thornbill species. I have known experienced birders spend a lot of time chasing down the call of a rarity, only to find it was a Brown Thornbill mimicking.
These two photos are from down at the coast, some 120km east of Canberra.
A Brown Thornbill in a Banksia bush.
A Yellow Thornbill (Acanthiza nana). A small thornbill, generally lacking in distinguishing features. The slightly orange patch under the chin is usually the best field mark. Their call is a sharp tzit-tzit (usually, but not always just two syllables).
A Yellow Thornbill in my bird bath. The birds in the background are Red-browed Finches (Neochmia temporalis).
A Yellow-rumped Thornbill (Acanthiza chrysorrhoa). The largest of the thornbills, they forage mostly on the ground and have a bright yellow rump, making them the easiest thornbill to identify. Their call is a tinkling melodious warble.
A Yellow-rumped Thornbill on the ground. Their bright yellow rump is only visible when they are flying.
A Buff-rumped Thornbill (Acanthiza reguloides). Another ground foraging thornbill. Their calls are flatter and less melodious than the Yellow-rumped.
Another Buff-rumped Thornbill, showing its buff coloured rump.
A Buff-rumped Thornbill with a caterpillar.
A Weebill (Smicrornis brevirostris). Often described as Australia’s smallest bird, the Weebill is not a thornbill, but it is of the same family (Acanthizidae). Their bills are shorter and thicker than thornbills. Their calls include distinctive whistles, sometimes described as sounding like “I’m a Weebill”. They also make harsher tzit type calls.
Finally, one of the most colourful members of the family Acanthizidae, a White-throated Gerygone (Gerygone olivacea). They have the most beautiful cascading musical song.
Nice set – interesting theme.
Thanks for the lovely pics.
When I was a baby birder, LBBs drove me to distraction (they still do, actually). It’s nice to know that despite the great diversity of bird life in Australia, you too have an LBB problem.
These are wonderful. Thank you!
Lovely photos of a lovely bird.
Thanks!
Very nice!
Thank you, that was fun – and reminiscent of the agonies of identifying the Tyrant Flycatchers here in the US.
I love it when birders include LBBs as subjects of special attention. Despite their dull coloration, many LBBs show a subtle beauty, as your extraordinary photos nicely illustrate. Thanks for sharing.
I’m intrigued by the description of a White-throated Gerygone as having “the most beautiful cascading musical song.”
How does it compare to the echo-y Wood Thrush? I’ve long thought that the Wood Thrush has the most lyrical song — especially when I hear it reverberate among the tall redwoods in the small canyon of Muir Woods National Monument (Marin County, San Francisco Bay Area).
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Thrush/sounds#
You can hear examples of the call of the White-throated Gerygone on the wildlife sounds website xeno-canto. Their songs last up to 20 seconds and carry a very long way, which is surprising for such a tiny bird. According to my bird guide the name “Gerygone” is derived from Greek and means “children of song”. The common English name for them used to be “warbler”, but it was changed to avoid confusion with the unrelated Old World warblers.
Calls can be heard here: https://xeno-canto.org/species/Gerygone-olivacea.
Hmm… The link takes me to this statement: “The species Gerygone olivacea/ does not exist in our database.”
I did find a bunch of recordings at eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology):
https://media.ebird.org/catalog?taxonCode=whtger1&mediaType=audio
Interesting descending songs. But I think I still favor the Wood Thrush…
Sorry about the link not working. There seems to be something weird about the xeno-canto website. You can certainly find the calls by searching from the home page. Yes, the Wood Thrush has a nice echo-y call. All bird calls sound better out in the world than in a recording.
Thanks! (Lovely photos, too.)
Lovely bird pictures, thank you.
Nice photos, thanks.
I’ve always seen the small, hard-to-distinguish brown birds referred to as LBJs–Little Brown Jobs. Probably a USA thing.
Yes, I’ve heard that expression too. I always thought it was British expression.
You’re a pro, Thanks!