Splits 2 (shrike-tit calls) + other splits & lumps

Hi all, just noticed the postings relating to Shrike-tit vocalisations by Phil Gregory and Tom Tarrant on 3 Jan 2013 on birding-aus. My experience is similar to that of Tom’s except that no call playback was used. Andrew Stafford and myself were on our 8 grasswren & 3 emuwren trip (that being the full set of Amytornis & Stipiturus in those days) from the Kimberley to Victoria in August 1991 – at the Drysdale River in the Kimberley we noticed calls very similar or identical to Eastern Shrike-tit (mournful whistle). We tracked down the bird and sure enough, it was a Northern Shrike-tit, still the only one I’ve seen. So, I’m not sure where Phil’s idea of ‘very different calls’ comes from, certainly if I hadn’t chased these obviously shrike-tit-like calls (this being almost identical to the common call in south-eastern Australian shrike-tits at least) I wouldn’t have Northern Shrike-tit on my list. An obvious split for mine, certainly more convincing than Tasmanian Scrubwren (tail end of cline) or Black-eared Miner (it seems necessary to actively remove yellow-throated miners from Gluepot to maintain the genet ic persistence of Black-eared genes).

Just to comment of the Bronze-cuckoo debate, we need to take into account all the forms of the minutillus (or should that be malayanus??) complex in New Guinea and eastern Indonesia (e.g Gould’s russatus is recognised as occurring in Sulawesi). More research need to be done, focussing on the points raised by Lloyd Neilsen in his posting. My personal opinion is that they are very closely related and the calls are pretty much identical across the entire range (so I prefer to lump them), but there could be differences – e.g. a couple of apparently endemic forms (species?) in e. Indonesia (Wallacea).

Not so Spotted & Yellow-rumped Pardalote, it has always been my view that these two are full species. The so-called wide integradation is a bit of a furphy, in fact in northern Victoria, the two are generally sharply differentiated in terms of habitat and there few places in which the two breed in close proximity. Yellow-rumped maintains distinct populations in tiny patches of mallee surrounded by box-ironbark forest inhabited by Spotted at sites like Rushworth, Bendigo Whipstick and Kamarooka. The two are easily separated by their advertisement calls (although contact calls are very similar), something ignored or glossed over by Schodde & Mason. It seems the lumping is based on Woinarski’s work (Emu vol. 84) at Millwood Dam, Kamarooka where he found 5 out of 7 mixed pairs (statisticians should have have input here – this sample size is pretty small is it not?), but did not mention anything about the distinct vocalisations of the two forms. This site has both box-ironbark and mallee habitat in very close proximity and I have never seen birds with hybrid characters there or elsewhere around Bendigo, despite searching on multiple visits. There may be some intergradation in the south-east of South Australia where extensive habitat clearance has taken place, but my understanding is that in south-west WA the two forms act as separate species. More research please, and not forgetting the north Queensland form!

Plenty more splits vs. lumps argument to bandy around birding-aus (don’t get me started on the those nonsense splits of the Rainbow Lorikeet and Golden Whistler complexes), bring it on!

Cheers PSL

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