In East Gippsland we are always excited to find a Crested Shrike-tit as they are somewhat uncommon in this region, but across the whole range of the Eastern Shrike-tit sub-species (Falcunculus frontatus, they vary from rare to common in optimum habitat. There are two other sub-species, Western and Northern.
We discovered they can be common on a recent BirdLife East Gippsland Autumn Camp based in Chiltern in late March 2026, when camp participants were delighted to encounter them in a number of locations and habitats.
The following survey records from Birdata (1) reveal the difference in abundance between the two areas:
Birdata BirdLife East Gippsland East Gippsland regional group area, total surveys 51,000, Crested Shrike-tit records 766.
Birdata Ovens Murray regional group area, which covers the autumn camp locations, total surveys 48,553 (a similar survey effort to East Gippsland), Crested Shrike-tit records 2,885.
The ratio is 766/2,885 or 1 to 3.77 - therefore in suitable/optimum habitat, especially Mt Pilot National Park box-ironbark woodland, we are nearly 4 times as likely to come across a Crested Shrike-tit in the Ovens Murray region than in East Gippsland. It is always nice when the data confirms the “in-the-field” experience.
The following photos are of two males from two locations in the Chiltern area - note the black throat, the females have an olive-green throat. The powerful black bill is used to glean invertebrate food from bark and rotting wood so they are often detected by the sound of shredding bark.
NOTE: You can left click on any photo to open a slide show of the photos free of text or a right click enables one photo at a time to be opened in a New Tab where an enlarged version can be viewed.
The bird in the following photo shows a hint of the crest which is not often seen fully raised.
As the photos reveal, Crested Shrike-tits are strikingly beautiful birds, which goes someway to explaining why finding them is always special, irrespective of their local abundance.
NOTE 1: Birdata is BirdLife Australia’s national database for bird survey records. Here is a link to Birdata – you will need to create an account to access the database if you do not already have one. A smart phone version for recording surveys in the field is available at the App Store .
For East Gippsland Shire eBird records include 655 records of Crested Shrike-tit from 44,470 surveys, giving 1.47 % of surveys with the target species. The Birdata result is astonishingly close, even allowing for a proportion of the eBird records being copied across, at 1.48%.
ReplyDeleteLooking at total number of ebird observation records (630,495) roughly 1 record in 1,000 relates to Shrike-tit. That could be compared with the commonest species Superb Fairywren with 28 records per 1,000.
Thanks for the eBird observations Flabmeister.
DeleteComparing the reporting rates for Crested Shrike-tit for East Gippsland regional group and Ovens-Murray against the total number of species recorded gives the following numbers:
EG 419 total species, Crested Shrike-tit reporting rate = 1.45%
OM 319 species, Crested Shrike-tit reporting rate = 5.94%
Ratio EG/OM = 1.45/5.94 = 1/4.09 therefore the data suggests a birder is 4 time more likely to record a Crested Shrike-tit in Ovens-Murray than East Gippsland.
The significant difference in total species for the two regions, 419 v’s 319, is due to the more diverse habitats in East Gippsland with Australia’s largest inland waterway - the Gippsland Lakes - and a long coast line.