Re: birding-aus Crested Shrike Tit

[(Richard Johnson)]

Hi all

An interesting question from John. Like him, I've seen them in a range of wet to dry open forest types. If I had to pick a common thread , it would be an apparent association with eucalypts that have strips of decorticating bark. For example, Sydney blue gum E. saligna and blackbutt E. pilularis in wet sclerophyll/rainforest ecotones in SEQ (was this where you saw your palm rainforest birds, John?); Qld blue gum E. tereticornis and gum-topped box E. moluccana in dry open forest in SEQ; yellow box E. melliodora/white box E. albens woodland near Stanthorpe, Qld; and powderbark wandoo E. accedens ( think that's the name) woodland at Dryandra, SW WA.
These enigmatic birds (I never seem to see them twice in the same place!) can be located by the noise they make tearing bark off trees, and gums with peeling strips seem to be preferred. What are other people's experiences? I am certainly no expert on shrike-tits and look forward to hearing more.

Richard

John Leonard wrote:

We've recently had a thread about the status and location of hot-spots for
Great-crested Grebe. I wonder if we could turn our minds to Crested
Shrike-tits?

Reason being that it just occurred to me the other day that CST (or at
least the se race, I haven't seen it anywhere outside the se) is one of the
few birds which I can't really think of the habitat requirements for. I
seem to have see the sp in every type of wooded habitat from rain-forest
with palms (se Queensland) to exotic plantings in the ACT. Nor do the birds
seem to be very sedentary or predictable in their occurrence. I must see
them three or four times a year, but hardly ever in the same places, and
it's always unexpected to find them.

Have other people found this to be the case? What are its habitat
requirements?

John Leonard

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John Leonard (Dr),
PO Box 243,
Woden, ACT 2606,
Australia

http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
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Richard Johnson
Senior Conservation Officer, Habitat Case Studies
Roma District
Tel: (07) 4622 4266  Fax: (07) 4622 4151
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