brown treecreeper-Cape York race

["Noel Luff" <>]

the brown treecreeper (race melanota) was included in my target birds list for a recent trip to Queensland (including Cape York).

 

I finally found what appeared to be a pair at Blackwood National Park (about 160 kms south of Charters Towers) and about 90kms south of where HANZAB and Shodde & Mason show its distribution to be.

 

The birds in question had the distinctive black cap and white eyebrows associated with the sub-species.

 

The thing that intrigued me the most was their "typical" treecreeper foraging technique. I observed them for about ten minutes and at no time did they use the ground. Instead they spent most of their time flying from tree to tree and working up it in a manner similar to that of the white-throated treecreeper. (It was most unlike the normal brown treecreeper's technique which involves a lot of hopping about on the ground and only short forays up a tree).

 

I was wondering if this is typical for the sub-species in question