Australia

Identifying LBJs (little brown jobs) provides some of the biggest challenges to birders. They are little, they are brownish, and it is often a hard job to identify them. Australia has a few such complexes of birds with resemblant features, and which lack stand-out diagnostic characteristics useful for identification from afar. These include thornbills, sandpipers, gerygones, shrikethrushes, fairywrens (females or immatures), robins, and honeyeaters, etc.

Adult female Golden Whistler, photo by Delia Walker. Can you tell her apart from other brown birds?

What approach can be taken to identify a bird that not vibrantly-colored, but can be locally common across a range of habitats, and is visually similar to a variety of other taxa? These groups can be challenging, but fortunately many of these species can eventually be identified through a combination of certain anatomical features, preferred habitat, call and distribution (for instance this excellent resource helps delineate the many shades of brown of female and eclipse male fairywrens).

Golden whistlers fit the LBJ description almost perfectly. Australia has three species in the Golden Whistler complex. The Golden Whistler (Pachycephala pectoralis) is found in eastern Australia with subspecies present on offshore islands (although they are not found in central arid areas and have limited presence in the Brigalow Belt). The Western Whistler (P. occidentalis) is restricted to southwestern WA. The third species, Mangrove Golden Whistler (P. melanura) is found in mangroves and adjacent habitats across the north of the continent. The only likely zone of overlap is in northern QLD coast.

Western Whistler by Geoffrey Groom/Macaulay Library. Although male golden whistlers are bright and easily identifiable, females and juveniles are not so easy to tell apart.

While male golden whistlers are easily identifiable by a combination of the brilliant yellow plumage and the black-and-white pattern on the head, female and immature birds regularly confuse birders. The confusion is due to both their sheer “unremarkableness” and their resemblance to other whistler species. Data compiled from a popular bird identification resource (the Australian Bird Identification page on Facebook) shows that a little over 3% of identification queries from across Australia are of young or female golden whistlers (equating to at least one flummoxed birder a day). In Australia, perhaps identification of the female golden whistler is one of those talents that demonstrates a birder’s transition from novice to more experienced?

Golden Whistler female, photo by Karen Weil

So how does one identify a female or young golden whistler?

SIZE: While it is often difficult to judge relative sizes, whether in the field or in photographs, it is generally easy to ball-park an estimate. Whistlers are generally 16–19 cm, roughly the span between an outstretched thumb and little finger on an adult hand; larger than many other small brown birds, but not as big as, say, shrikethrushes, and hence will not present as robustly.

COLOUR: Golden whistler females and young are an olive green/grey on both upper and lower body, showing very little, if any, streaking (which helps distinguish them from the similarly widespread Rufous Whistler and the northerly Grey Whistler, both of which are lighter grey/brown with no olive tones and heavily streaked on the breast) and no paleness or different colours to the head (Olive Whistler, a southeastern mainland and Tasmanian bird, has a distinctly pale throat; the rare Red-lored Whistler from inland mallee habitats in SA, Vic and NSW, often has rufous-orange patches on the face). Very young golden whistlers often have rufous-brown wings, but these disappear with age.

YELLOW VENT: As birds age, they develop a yellow hue to the ventral region, which provides an additional feature to help identify them.

BEAK: The golden whistler bill is less robust and stout than in both Gilbert’s Whistler (a south-east mainland inland species) and White-breasted Whistler (a northern Australia mangrove specialist), but is simultaneously more robust than that of many other LBJs, like Jacky Winter and other Australian Robins (Petroica spp.).

CALLS: These can help to narrow down a species. Online resources like Xeno-canto (P. pectoralis call) and both electronic apps for Australian birds (Pizzey & Knight, Morcombe & Stewart) have helpful recordings.

HABITAT: This is not a particularly reliable distinguishing factor. They generally avoid open or un-treed habitats, although both Golden and Mangrove Golden Whistlers can both be found in mangroves, and both Western and Golden Whistlers can be found in habitats from rainforest, wet and dry sclerophyll, wallum, and other coastal woodlands, alpine forests, to dry woodlands like mulga, mallee and dryandra ecotypes. While their movements are not well known, some Golden Whistlers move to lower altitudes in winter; birds on passage, as well as dispersing youngsters, can often be seen in suburbs and even inner cities, with many encountering windows and buildings. Any such sightings are valuable data for scientists who seek to better understand the movements and population dynamics of our native species, and we highly recommended all confidently identified golden whistler sightings be submitted to eBird.

Despite all this information, it is understandable that people will still find golden whistler female and young birds tricky to identify. Thankfully, hive-mind resources like forums and the Australian Bird Identification page on Facebook are all useful for helping to establish identifications. Including media such as photographs and calls with your eBird submission (See How-to HERE) means that your moderators can also help with identification.

~contributed by Russell’ Yong