Gilbert’s Whistler Pachycephala inornata

Length 17–20.5 cm; wingspan 26–32 cm; weight 30 g.

Fairly unobtrusive, and more often heard than seen, the Gilbert’s Whistler can usually be located by its loud call, which may carry for up to 900 metres; they mainly call from within cover, but sometimes from exposed branches.  Gilbert’s Whistlers can be quite approachable, especially during the breeding period, when they are usually observed singly or in pairs.  They forage on the ground, in shrubs or in low trees.  Their flight is strongly undulating, alternating bursts of strong wing-beats with shallow, swooping glides for short distances between shrubs and close to ground.

HABITAT
Gilbert’s Whistlers usually inhabit semi-arid mallee or box–ironbark eucalypt, acacia, cypress-pine or Belah shrublands and woodlands (or mixed assemblages of these), usually with a dense, continuous or patchy understorey of shrubs such as acacias, Eremophila, Dodonaea or Cassia; they inhabit these shrubs in the understorey.  They also inhabit thickets of paperbarks, including Broombush, or mixed patches of mallee–Broombush.  Sometimes, they occur in taller eucalypt woodlands or forests, such as in a dense understorey of Chinese Scrub Cassinia arcuata and Golden Wattle in a Mugga Ironbark forest, in Black Box woodland with lignum in the understorey, or in Brown Stringybark woodland with an understorey of Callistemon, Hibbertia and Silver Banksia; floristically, these habitats may seem atypical, but they are structurally similar to other suitable habitats inhabited by the species.  Gilbert’s Whistlers sometimes also occur among regrowth vegetation after the habitat has been disturbed.

DISTRIBUTION
Scattered in much of semi-arid southern Australia.

STATUS

• Vulnerable in New South Wales
• Declining in Victoria
• Rare in South Australia

THREATS
Populations in some areas have declined following clearing or fragmentation of their habitat.

MOVEMENTS
Resident or sedentary.

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