There
was a good number of bush birds this morning at the Namadgi Visitors Centre, as
the haze cleared under the sun. A group of about 15 Dusky Woodswallows was
very active, and included several fledged young. The most interesting sighting
was a single Diamond Firetail.
There
was also a slim brown bird that I couldn’t identify. It was active in the
canopy of the open woodland, but flew down to the shrub layer at times. A little
smaller than the woodswallows, which it associated with briefly, and slimmer –
say 16 cm? Head, shoulders and (especially) wings were
mottled/scalloped/patterned brown; breast and belly were very pale, with faint
streaks on the throat. Faint brown eye-line. Tail was clearly notched and
rounded (a better description is that both halves of the tail, either side of
the notch, were rounded). No other distinguishing
features.
Female/immature
White-winged Triller is a possibility, but the patterning wasn’t restricted to
the wing-coverts, and the tail doesn’t seem to fit. There was a male
White-winged Triller feeding on the ground some distance away. Female Rufous
Songlark is another possibility, but that’s a bird I don’t know, and I couldn’t
see any reddening on the rump, although some web images do show a notched tail
. Do Rufous Songlarks spend time in the canopy? Or can anyone
suggest a third possibility?
Steve
