Con,
I have the following references available to me at home:
"A Field Guide to the Birds of South-east Asia" (Robson 2008),
"The Birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsular - Volume 2, Non-Passerines"
(Wells, 2007),
"Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lamka and
the Maldives" (Grimmett, Inskip and Inskip, 1999),
"A Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Bali"
(MacKinnon and Phillipps, 1993)
"The Birds of Hong Kong and South China", (Viney, Phillipps and Lam, 2005)
Based on the illustrations in those works, my view is that neither the
Wallcreeper nor any of the Nuthatches that occur in these regions
shows an uptilt to the bill - at least, not to the extent shown by the
Varied Sittella.
To get a view from photos rather than the work of an illustrator, you
might like to check some of the images of Nuthatches that can be seen
on the Oriental Bird Club Image Database
(http://orientalbirdimages.org).
Hope this is some help.
Bruce
On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 10:05 AM, con <> wrote:
> Matthew
> Great shot and story. I noticed from the photo that Sittellas appear to
> have an unusual beak, in that it points up rather than straight out or down
> as is the case with most birds. I suppose that this is because they are an
> upside down bird! It would be interesting to see whether birds with a
> similar ecology overseas (nuthatches, for example) also have upside-down
> beaks.
> Con
>
> Matthew Frawley wrote:
>>
>> Subscribers may recall that I observed a pair of Varied Sittella nest
>> building in a Blakely's Red Gum in the woodland behind the Namadgi Visitors
>> Centre on 13 September and that Suzi Bond and Anthony Overs also saw them
>> doing the same eight days later on 21 September. I believe they are now on
>> nest and that this photo on Flickr (taken on 1 October) shows them:
>> m("N03/3970524869/","//www.flickr.com/photos/11701520");">http:
>>
>> Matthew Frawley
>
>
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