Tawny Grassbird

Apart from a few vagrant records the Tawny Grassbird is not found in the State of Victoria. In NSW it can be found north of the Shoalhaven River in coastal heaths including sand dunes and wetlands with dense reeds and rank grasses. From my experience this bird tends to be a reclusive skulker like the smaller Little Grassbird and the similar sized Australian Reed-Warbler (1) and often its presence is detected by its rather cross sounding ‘jk-jk’ alarm call coming from dense grass or other vegetation. During the breeding season males make fluttering tail down song-flights over cover when they are rather obvious. At other times one needs a certain degree of luck to find one in the open, especially for photos.  

Recently in northern NSW I was lucky to come upon a group of four Tawny Grassbirds foraging along a lagoon bank in dense grass from which one emerged to perch in a relatively open small shrub with the early morning light behind me. I have seen this species many times in various locations over the years but this was the first reasonable photo opportunity I have had. 

Please click on photos to enlarge.

The birds were foraging in rank grass where they were impossible to see as they moved ahead of me. Then one bird flew into some reeds giving a good enough view to confirm they were Tawny Grassbirds.

From there the bird flew from the reeds into a relatively open shrub on the lagoon bank – still not a clear view for a photo.

Fortunately the bird then moved up the shrub and into the open.

The bird’s tawny/rufous crown shows well in the next photo.

The next photo shows the whitish un-streaked underparts.

While some field guides note an un-streaked rufous crown, the crown can however give a streaked appearance as seen in the next photo. 

As the bird moved away it perched briefly to give one last photo opportunity which shows the heavy black streaks on the bird’s upper parts well.

Note (1)

The Tawny Grassbird could easily be confused with the similar sized and coloured Australian Reed-Warbler which shares similar habitat and the two birds can often be found in the same locations. For comparison with the Tawny Grassbird you can see photos of the Reed-Warbler in this earlier Avithera post:  http://avithera.blogspot.com/2020/08/australian-reed-warbler.html