I saw two birds in a shrub… actually in two shrubs and I reckon they are Spinifexbirds. And seeing there are legions of more knowledgable Spinifexbird people than mois… Anyway they’re on my blog.
Chris Shaw seashore@internode.on.net Mobile 0409 675912
My blog – “Top Birds and Everyfing” can be found on the following link
http://topbirdsandeveryfing.typepad.com/top-birds-everyfing/
“Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.” – Robert T. Kiyosaki
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Thanks Colin and Nikolas for your feedback. Alström et al. (2011) sampled five loci and do indeed find that the Spinifexbird is very genetically similar to Megalurus gramineus (The Little Grassbird) and Megalurus punctatus (New Zealand Fernwren) and so have renamed it Megalurus carteri.
Kind regards,
Stephen
Stephen Ambrose
Ryde NSW
Sent: Saturday, 23 March 2013 7:40 PM
Per Alstrom has a very organised website, with his pdfs:
http://www.slu.se/per-alstrom-research
This paper includes Spinifexbird in a genetic aalysis with other Locustellidae:
Alström, P., Fregin, S., Norman, J.A., Ericson, P.G.P., Christidis, L. & Olsson, U. 2011. Multilocus analysis of a taxonomically densely sampled dataset reveal extensive non-monophyly in the avian family Locustellidae. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 58: 513526. DOI:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.12.012
Abstract
The phylogeny of most of the species in the avian passerine family Locustellidae is inferred using a Bayesian species tree approach (Bayesian Estimation of Species Trees, BEST), as well as a traditional Bayesian gene tree method (MrBayes), based on a dataset comprising one mitochondrial and four nuclear loci. The trees inferred by the different methods agree fairly well in topology, although in a few cases there are marked differences. Some of these discrepancies might be due to convergence problems for BEST (despite up to 1 × 109 iterations). The phylogeny strongly disagrees with the current taxonomy at the generic level, and we propose a revised classification that recognizes four instead of seven genera. These results emphasize the well known but still often neglected problem of basing classifications on non-cladistic evaluations of morphological characters. An analysis of an extended mitochondrial dataset with multiple individuals from most species, including many subspecies, suggest that several taxa presently treated as subspecies or as monotypic species as well as a few taxa recognized as separate species are in need of further taxonomic work.
PDF:
http://www.nrm.se/download/18.42129f1312d951207af800049217/Alstr%C3%B6m+et+a l+Locustellidae+MPEV+2011.pdf
Colin
Eremiornis carteri Or Not
from [ http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi?query=%2Bfr om%3Anhaass%40yahoo.com&idxname=birding-aus&sort=date%3Alate> Nikolas Haass]
[Permanent http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=birding-aus &i=1364025348.52170.YahooMailNeo%40web142403.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Link][Original http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/cgi-bin/extract-mesg.cgi?a=bir ding-aus&m=2013-03&i=1364025348.52170.YahooMailNeo%40web142403.mail.bf1.yaho o.com> ]
Stephen Ambrose, ‘birding-aus threads’
Eremiornis carteri Or Not
Nikolas Haass
Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:55:48 -0700 (PDT)
Hi Stephen,
All I can find is “TAX : Spinifexbird is a member of Megalurus [Locustellidae, previously Megaluridae] (Christidis & Boles 2008; Alström et al 2011a)” on the IOC website http://www.worldbirdnames.org/n-warblers%20ow.html
Nikolas
Hi Stephen,
All I can find is “TAX : Spinifexbird is a member of Megalurus [Locustellidae, previously Megaluridae] (Christidis & Boles 2008; Alström et al 2011a)” on the IOC website http://www.worldbirdnames.org/n-warblers%20ow.html
Nikolas
Thanks everyone for the feedback and the information. The three photos are all the same bird. The second bird I didn’t manage to get a shot of and it was that individual that more or less convinced me that they were both Spinifexbirds. The second individual was more characteristic, sitting with tail down; tail was longer and had the distinctive rounded shape.
All the best
Chris
Chris Shaw seashore@internode.on.net Mobile 0409 675912
My blog – “Top Birds and Everyfing” can be found on the following link
http://topbirdsandeveryfing.typepad.com/top-birds-everyfing/
“Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.” – Robert T. Kiyosaki
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At least one of them is a juvenile, not sure about the other because of the angles of the shots. But they are great photos. I and Darren Murphy studied the physiological ecology of Spinifexbirds on Barrow Island from 1990 to 1993. There were two breeding responses among the Barrow Island population of Spinifexbirds – the usual spring breeding period (seasonal breeding) and after summer cyclonic rains (opportunistic breeding).
Ambrose, S. J., and D. P. Murphy. 1994. Synchronous breeding of land birds on Barrow Island, Western Australia, after cyclonic summer rains. Emu 94:55-58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/MU9940055
Since it has been a relatively wet summer in the Pilbara, it is not unreasonable to expect juvenile Spinifexbirds to be present at this time.
Nikolas (or anyone else), do you have any references that lumps Emeriornis into Megalurus? I know that Christidis & Boles were considering this but in the end they still separated the two genera. I’m not aware of any published studies on this issue since then and, if there have been, I’d like to know about hem.
Stephen Ambrose Ryde NSW
At least one of them is a juvenile, not sure about the other because of the angles of the shots. But they are great photos. I and Darren Murphy studied the physiological ecology of Spinifexbirds on Barrow Island from 1990 to 1993. There were two breeding responses among the Barrow Island population of Spinifexbirds – the usual spring breeding period (seasonal breeding) and after summer cyclonic rains (opportunistic breeding).
Ambrose, S. J., and D. P. Murphy. 1994. Synchronous breeding of land birds on Barrow Island, Western Australia, after cyclonic summer rains. Emu 94:55-58.
Since it has been a relatively wet summer in the Pilbara, it is not unreasonable to expect juvenile Spinifexbirds to be present at this time.
I agree with the ID – Megalurus carteri. The tail is a bit short (but big-tailed enough to make it mega (big) urus (tail)) and the gape pale – are they juv. Spinifexbirds?
Nikolas
Hi Chris, yes your first thought is correct, they are indeed Spinifexbirds!! cheers,
Martin Cachard Cairns 0428 782 808
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