Hi Richard, I’ve been to Whyalla CP. It is a very small park, predominately ‘flat’. Wild Dog Hill is near the western boundary but it is only 100m high so nothing like the hills of the Flinders. In August 2003 I saw the Thick-billed near the walk track to the hill, but on the flat’ before the track started to ascend the hill. I understand others have seen it on the hill.
Cheers
Frank Pierce
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The South Australian Ornithologist Vol 37 – part 2 – September 2011 has a comprehensive 21 page article by Andrew Black, Graham Carpenter and Lynn Pedler which describes the distribution and habitats of the Thick-billed Grasswren Aytornis modestus and the Western Grasswren Amytornis textilis myall in South Australia.
Unfortunately this issue of the South Australian Ornithologist does not yet appear to be on the Birds SA website.
Bob Sothman Adelaide
Tony
Of some aid to you may be the latest Simpson & Day which while not perfectly up to date is somewhat helpful in that it has all the GW’s on one page with the distribution maps for spp & ssp.
Greg Little
I’m very confused by all this. I’ve been to all the locations mentioned and seen Grasswrens, but now don’t know which sp and ssp I’ve seen where. I just wish someone would publish a definitive listing of which birds are in which locations — can do, please?
Tony
Yes, when you get to the picnic area, which is sort of on the left of the track, there as a flattish approach to the hill over to the right with scattered rocks. That’s one of the best places to look, but don’t go up the hill.
Tony
G’day all, It would be very interesting to get the current taxonomic musings for our grasswrens, especially the Striated GW complex. Firstly, I must apologise in advance for my simplistic understanding of taxonomy, but I do hope that my questions & thoughts below are seen as very much that of a layman… Richard B has commented that whitei & rowleyi may be next to be split from Striated. I’ve often wondered how much habitat preference would play in this. Apart from morphological differences, the Short-tailed merrotsyi is a rock inhabiting species, quite unlike the nominate race striatus of Striated, which is a sandplain bird. Race rowleyi of Striated is also a sandplain inhabitant, well, at least from my observations. Yet, race whitei inhabits rocky terrain. There must be a lot more to it than just sandplain vs rocky terrain, but I wonder why it has been mooted that rowleyi is the next most likely race of Striated to be split, given that it a sandplain bird (at least from my experience). I would have thought that whitei being a bird of rocky terrain (as is merrotsyi Short-tailed GW), would be one to consider very closely. It would be interesting to get others’ thoughts on this….. Cheers for now, Martin Cachard,Cairns, 0428 782 808 > Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:35:17 -0800
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