Dear Bob and others
On the face of it, it does seem an unlikely record - no offence intended
to Mike Tarburton. The'Atherton region' of the Atlas (Blakers et al
1984) does not refer to the surrounds of the town of Atherton per se
but to a rather arbitrarily defined 'Wet Tropics', presumably to distinguish
this area of bird endemism from the rest of eastern Qld. It includes the
NEQ coast from about Ingham to Cooktown, where the subspecies laveryi
is known to occur.
Lake Tinaroo is a long way inland and uphill from the coastal lowlands
where the species is known to occur. As far as I know, it is only known
from coastal or near coastal grasslands in NEQ and elsewhere in its Australian
range. Conversely, if my addled memory serves me yet, Golden-headed Cisticolas
are pretty common in the 'derived' grasslands of the Atherton Tableland.
On my scant knowledge of the bird, this would seem to be a very significant
range extension and the record definitely should be assessed by BARC or
similar. I don't know about a secret location known only to an 'in crowd'!
Sounds a bit conspiracy-theoryish to me...but then, you never know!
Richard
Robert Inglis wrote:
Hello again, In the June 2000
edition of Australian Birding Magazine (packed full of good stuff!) Mike
Tarbuton reports, in his article on page 6, that he observed Zitting
Cisticola at Lake Tinaroo in December 1999.Is this an extension of
the range for this species?None of my field guides, including Lloyd Nielsen's
"Birds of Queensland's Wet Tropics and Great Barrier Reef" include that
area in the distribution details for that species - maps or text."The Atlas
of Australian Birds", Blakers, et al (1984), does claim the subspecies
laveryi occurs in the 'Atherton region' however it appears that
none were sighted in that area during the atlasing period.The term 'Atherton
region' probably needs defining........ please?If the Lake Tinaroo area
is in fact a recognised location for Zitting Cisticola it would
appear that this is possibly the first reported sighting for many years.A
quick perusal of the Australian Bird Atlas Map Viewer seems to indicate
that no reports of Zitting Cisticola had been received up to 14/3/2000.Should
this sighting be assessed by BARC?As the bird was observed during the breeding
season it would be assumed that it was in breeding plumage and therefore
less likely to be confused with Golden Headed Cisticola.However........The
field guides are confusing as usual!* Pizzey and Doyle (1980) and Pizzey
and Knight (1997) both say that Zitting is more heavily streaked
on the nape than Golden-headed.*Simpson and Day (1999) say that
breeding male Zitting has unstreaked nape.*"Readers Digest Photographic
Field Guide Birds Of Australia" agrees with S & D (1999).*Peter Slater,
"A Field Guide to Australian Birds, Passerines" (1974) says breeding Zitting
has lightly streaked nape and non-breeding Zitting has more
heavily streaked nape.*Slater, Slater, Slater, "The Slater Field Guide
to Australian Birds" does not mention the nape in the text for Zitting
but the illustrations seem to indicate very faint or no streaking on
the nape.*The photos in "Readers Digest Photographic Field Guide" &
"The Wrens and Warblers of Australia" (The National Photographic Index
of Australian Wildlife, 1982) are inconclusive but possibly favour faint
or no streaking on the nape of Zitting Cisticola.*The colours depicted
in the illustrations in Simpson and Day (1999) show virtually no difference
between Zitting and Golden-headed whereas the illustrations
in Pizzey and Knight (1997) show an obvious difference. This is may only
be due to the problems associated with printing colours in such books.If
the calls of Zitting and Golden-headed Cisticola recorded
on Cassette 9 of BOCA's "A Field Guide to Australian Birdsong" are typical,
I would think it would be relatively easy to identify one from the other
by call.Am I correct? This appears to me to be a significant record.But
then again.........Has the existence of Zitting Cisticola at Lake
Tinaroo been a fact known by the 'in-crowd' for a long time and has Mike
Tarbuton inadvertently 'let the cat out of the bag'?! Bob
Inglis
Woody point SEQld,
27 deg 15min 18 sec S; 153 deg 5 min 38 sec E
E-mail:
WWW: http://www.powerup.com.au/~inglisrc
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+----------------------------------------+
Richard Johnson
Roma District
Tel: (07) 4622 4266 Fax: (07) 46 22 4151
E-mail:
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