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
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