I have some bad news for you Richard, you still haven't seen the second half
of the split Thick-billed Grasswren.
The birds in the Gawlers are ssp myall of the Western Grasswren textilis
which you have already seen, you should have gone to the Flinders not the
Gawlers, it's an Eyrean basin division of the two species. Short-tailed on
the other hand straddles the basin with a ssp on either side.
Cheers Jeff.
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Richard Baxter
Sent: Monday, 21 November 2011 7:19 PM
To: birding-aus
Subject: New Grasswren Species
Hello all,
With the recent release of the new 2011 Australian Birdlist,
which includes several updates from the 2008 list, I found myself needing
another grasswren. The newly split Thick-billed GrasswrenAmytornismodestus(
Gawler Ranges SA etc).
I'd only previously seenA textilis, which is now called Western Grasswren
from Shark Bay, Monkey Mia etc.
Having a couple days spare after seeing the Hoopoe in Broome I decided to
head down to Mt Ive Station in the Gawler Ranges. Mt Ive is about seven
hours drive from Adelaide Airport and with dry roads can be reached with a
2WD or SUV quite easily.
Birdlife in general wasn't all that abundant, with most of the species seen
at the station visible on the drive in. Despite the general lack of birds,
the Grasswren were plentiful. I stayed in the stone cottage and had
seen modestuswithin minutes of arriving and within 100m of my accommodation.
I walked down the side of the main dam, adjacent to the runway. At the
back of the dam wall there was a depression, which although dry, obviously
often holds water. A quick squeak and out popped three grasswren.
The other species on the property and also close to the accommodation is the
A.m.pedleri sub species of Short-tailed Grasswren. To see this I parked at
the base of Mt-Ive and walked straight up the hill to the aerial. I saw two
birds on the way up and a further three on the top. Again, very easy to
see.
This ssp is very different in appearance to the Flinder's Ranges race.
Note: The new 2011 Australian Birdlist download Excel version is on Tony
Palliser's Birder's Total webpage.
Cheers
Richard Baxter
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