Little Grassbirds

The following description of Little Grassbirds is borrowed – with modification by me – from Michael Morcombe’s excellent field guide. His description describes my experience with Little Grassbirds very well.

Secretive, skulking inhabitant of dense wetland vegetation. Usually allows only brief glimpses, then flutters away into dense concealing vegetation. The mournful three note call is often the only indication of the presence of Little Grassbirds.

So given this bird’s reputation it was a surprise to recently find a number of Little Grassbirds foraging out in the open at the Byron Wetlands in northern NSW. 

In the last few years the Byron Wetlands have been infested with Salvinia molesta, an invasive aquatic weed native to Brazil, which now forms dense floating mats over much of what was previously open water. There is no doubt the loss of open water has not favoured waterbirds which need that habitat. However the salvinia harbours many small insects which the Little grassbirds were able to exploit as the dense mat easily supported their weight.

Previous attempts to photograph this species captured a partially concealed small bird peering out from dense cover. By contrast the following photos were taken of birds foraging in the open with full sun at my back.  

Please click on photos to enlarge.

The long white brow is obvious in the above photo.

A few Comb-crested Jacanas were also foraging on the salvinia.

The Tawny Grassbird is also found at the Byron Wetlands. While larger the Tawny Grassbird shares many habitat and behaviour similarities with the Little Grassbirds. You can see a post here on the Tawny Grassbird: http://avithera.blogspot.com/2021/07/tawny-grassbird.html