id please

[jude hopwood <>]

Dear all,

 

Sorry, no photo.  Any ideas about where I could start?  Can't find anything that matches.

 

Smaller than a grey butcherbird.  Larger than a grey shrike-thrush. Bill dark and longer and thinner than GST. Legs lighter than bill. Lighter line around very dark eye. Fanned tail when standing.   Dark striations on pale grey chest and belly.  Yellowish grey on top of head.  Brown on wings.  Dark to light grey elsewhere.

 

Swooping flight behaviour.  Foraging - on back verandah for spiders, in garden for worms, on tree trunks under bark.  A pair of them.  Flight close to ground/shrubbery but perched on footpath (where I could see the fan tail behaviour).  No song heard during sighting, although some strange sounds from that part of the garden in the hour prior - may or not have been this bird.

 

Hoping for help,

Jude Hopwood.