Slender-billed Thornbill, Olary, NE South Australia

[Alistair Stewart <>]

Hi all,


I have been queried about a Slender-billed Thornbill (subspecies
iredalei) record of mine from a recent fauna survey of Bimbowrie
Station, ~50km north of Olary, South Australia (roughly 100km W of
Broken Hill). I am hoping that I could ask the 'brains trust' of any
other records in the North-eastern region of SA or for anyones
suspicions that their distribution is less known than shown in the
literature...


The birds I found were located by call, which is distinctive of all
other LBBs in the area, and I managed to track them down for some poor
views. I don't have a great recolection of the birds themselves, but I
was satisfied with the ID at the time, otherwise I wouldn't have left
the birds. The habitat was the edge of a large mixed
bluebush/shrub  plain, near a low stony rise. This was the
largest, least disturbed/grazed bluebush I saw on the property, which
extended to the property to the north.


Consulting HANZAB, there is a record to the south-east of Lake Frome,
which would be within 100km of this location and in the same catchment.
There has also been scattered records in the inland of northern SA and
two (one confirmed) from the Northern Territory. There is also a lot of
blank space between these records. Other notes on possible contraction
of range due to stock grazing and modification of habitat are in the
literature.


In a bit of a tangent, Thick-billed Grasswrens are also known from the
Olary area, mostly from the property to the north of Bimbowrie. These
species may share some habitat requirements, at least in the level of
disturbance they can tolerate. T-b G has also recently been discovered
(?) in the Northern Territory, possibly covering some of the same
distribution as the thornbill...?


Any comments would be appreciated.


Cheers,


Al