Little Shrike-thrush

Little Shrike Thrush it is! Thank you Malcolm, Lori & MacC for your help in ID-ing :)

Hi Leanne,
I'm with lori.tas on this one, pretty certain it is a Little Shrike Thrush

Thanks very much for your help Lori & Malcolm. Tricky little fella.

Yeah, from what I was reading, it's one of those "very varied" species. In truth, give the angle of the shot, we may never find a definitive match. I'm trying to remember if I've posted pics of Tasmania's Grey shrike thrush. It's so different from it's mainland cousins some consider it speciated. I'll have a look.

Interesting, I skipped past that because of the size and the picture in my book shows whitish belly patch behind the legs. Now, looking at my Australian field guide, it shows Little Shrike-thrush only found west of Darwin but Rufous Shrike-thrush east of Darwin all the way around the Queensland coastal area. The Rufous is a sub-species, Colluricincla megarhyncha rufogaster, according to the field guide. Now I will go to my other PC and cross-check with the current Clements list.

Sometimes you're lucky to get a shot at all, given birds' tenancy to hide among the branches. It was the bill that I was going from, as that tells you a lot about what a bird eats. The Little shrike thrush's bill was the closest. And the under-side coloration certainly matches. Best I could come up with, anyway.

Thanks Lori. That link actually looks more like it doesn't it? Wish I'd have got better shots.

Although the size is a bit a larger than you though, I think you might have spotted a Little shrike thrush: http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Little_Shr... . The bill just doesn't strike me as correct for a thornbill or similar species.

Thanks Malcolm. I did look at the Brown Thornbill, but it didn't quite match, though it was close.

The closest I found in my book is Striated Thornbill or Brown Thornbill.

I would say its body length was around 10cm lori.

Do you have any idea of how big it was?