Chestnut-rumped Heathwren Hylacola pyrrhopygia

Length 12.5–16 cm; wingspan 16–19 cm; weight 17 g.

A small terrestrial scrubwren-like bird, the Chestnut-rumped Heathwren occurs singly or in pairs, or occasionally in small groups.  The species is usually shy, secretive and silent, except during the breeding season, when males sing persistently from a perch within or atop a low shrub or a low branch in a tree, just above the level of dense undergrowth.  They forage mainly on the ground beneath dense, low vegetation, especially in areas with abundant fallen branches or rocks, and they sometimes also forage in low shrubs or low branches of small trees.  Foraging birds hop briskly through shrubs and over the ground, keeping the tail cocked at 50°–70°, in the manner of a fairy-wren.  When alarmed, the species dashes into cover with an action suggestive of a bouncing rubber ball.  When flushed, its flight is swift and gently undulating on short rounded wings, flying a short distance, just above the shrubs, before dropping into cover.

HABITAT
Chestnut-rumped Heathwrens mostly inhabit the low undergrowth of dense, complex and floristically diverse heathlands and the dense heathy understorey or ground layer of sclerophyll forests and woodlands (for example, Messmate or Brown Stringybark, Mugga Ironbark, Scribbly Gum, Cup Gum or mallee eucalypts), often where the vegetation is interspersed with patches of open ground or rocky outcrops and abundant fallen branches.  The dense, heathy vegetation inhabited often comprises proteaceous plants, especially banksias and Grevillea, intermixed with other shrubs such as Hakea, Kunzea, Correa, Brachyloma, Epacris, Isopogon, dwarf casuarinas, Leptospermum or acacias, as well as grass-trees, sometimes with a few scattered or stunted eucalypts.  The species is also sometimes recorded in the dense heath understorey of paperbark woodland.  It sometimes also occurs in closed coastal scrub or among saltmarsh, and is often recorded in regrowth vegetation soon after severe disturbance, such as a bushfire, logging or other clearing of vegetation.

DISTRIBUTION
Endemic to south-eastern mainland Australia, the Chestnut-rumped Heathwren occurs mostly on the seaward and inland slopes of the Great Divide, but is generally absent from the intervening tablelands.

STATUS

• Declining in New South Wales
• Vulnerable in Victoria
• Endangered in South Australia (Mt Lofty Ranges); Vulnerable in South Australia (Flinders Ranges, South-East)
• Endangered (Mt Lofty Ranges) in EPBC Act

THREATS
Urban development has displaced the species from some localities, such as in parts of suburban Sydney, and on the western slopes of the Great Divide in NSW, numbers have declined as a result of clearing of forests and woodlands.  Much suitable habitat in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia has been cleared, with the rest highly fragmented, and the species is currently threatened by an invasion of woody weeds and by subdivision.  The population in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia is threatened by large-scale bushfires, and much of its habitat is now reduced and fragmented after clearance.  Near settled areas, Chestnut-rumped Heathwrens are possibly adversely affected by the widespread use of pesticides.

MOVEMENTS
Sedentary or resident, but generally poorly known.

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