The speckled warbler (''Pyrrholaemus sagittatus'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Acanthizidae Acanthizidae—sometimes called Australian warblers—are a family of passerine birds which includes gerygones, thornbills '' Acanthiza'', and scrubwrens '' Sericornis''. The family Acanthizidae consists of small to medium passerine birds, with ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to eastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

is temperate

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

Taxonomy

The speckled warbler was first described by English physician and ornithologist John Latham in 1801. It was earlier grouped with the scrubwrens in ''Sericornis'' and then in the monotypic genus ''Chthonicola''. Morphological similarities and DNA studies now place it as a sister taxon with the redthroat in the genus ''Pyrrholaemus''.Gardner, J.L., Trueman, J.W.H., Ebert, D., Joseph, L. and Magrath, R.D. (2010). "Phylogeny and evolution of the Meliphagoidea, the largest radiation of Australasian songbirds." ''Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.'' 55(3): 1087–1102. It is monotypic, having no subspecies.Gregory, P. (2020). "Speckled Warbler (Pyrrholaemus sagittatus), version 1.0." In ''Birds of the World'' (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.spewar3.01 The generic name ''Pyrrholaemus'' is from classical Greek ''pyrrhos'' meaning 'flame-coloured, red' and ''laimos'' 'throat'. The specific epithet is the Latin ''sagittatus'' 'shot with arrows', referring to the bird's streaked chest. Other common names are blood tit, chocolate-bird, little fieldwren and speckled jack.Pizzey, Graham; Doyle, Roy (1980) ''A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia''. Collins Publishers, Sydney.

Description

The speckled warbler is a small, ground-dwelling warbler, measuring in length and weighing .Simpson, Ken, Day, N. and Trusler, P. (6th edn., 1999). ''Field Guide to the Birds of Australia''. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books Australia . It has an off-white face, streaked with buffy-brown on the ear coverts, and the crown is brown with white speckles. The eye is brown, the bill is dark grey-brown, and the legs are pinkish-brown. The male has a black upper margin to the brow, whereas on the female it is reddish-brown.Morcombe, Michael (2012) ''Field Guide to Australian Birds''. Pascal Press, Glebe, NSW. Revised edition. The plumage of the upperparts is grey-brown with darker streaks.Slater, Peter (1974) ''A Field Guide to Australian Birds: Passerines''. Adelaide: Rigby. The tail is dark-brown with a black subterminal band and white tips, and it is usually held horizontally. The underparts are yellowish-white and heavily streaked with black. The juvenile is similar to the female, but the top of its head is more diffusely spotted.

Distribution and habitat

The speckled warbler is found in southeastern Australia. It is patchily distributed in

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, roughly southeast of a line between Mackay and Charleville, being somewhat more common towards the extreme southeast of the state. In

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, it occurs throughout the New England Tablelands and the

South West Slopes The South Western Slopes, also known as the South West Slopes, is a region predominantly in New South Wales, Australia. It covers the lower inland slopes of the Great Dividing Range, extending from north of Dunedoo through central NSW and into ...

, extending westward to the

Pilliga Scrub The Pilliga Forest, sometimes known as the Pilliga Scrub, constitute over 5,000 km2 of semi-arid woodland in temperate north-central New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest such continuous remnant in the state. The forest is lo ...

and to

Griffith Griffith may refer to: People * Griffith (name) * Griffith (surname) * Griffith (given name) Places Antarctica * Mount Griffith, Ross Dependency * Griffith Peak (Antarctica), Marie Byrd Land * Griffith Glacier, Marie Byrd Land * Griffith Ridge, ...

in the

Riverina The Riverina () is an agricultural list of regions in Australia, region of south-western New South Wales, Australia. The Riverina is distinguished from other Australian regions by the combination of flat plains, a climate with significant seaso ...

, and eastwards into the

Hunter Valley The Hunter Region, also commonly known as the Hunter Valley, Newcastle Region, or simply Hunter, spans the region in northern New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney. It contains the Hunter River and its ...

. It is fairly common in the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory until 1938, is an internal States and territories of Australia, territory of Australia. Canberra, the capital city of Australia, is situated within the territory, an ...

. In

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

, the speckled warbler is found within a broad strip, including the Chiltern Box-Ironbark and

Warby-Ovens National Park The Warby-Ovens National Park is a national park located on the lands of the Bangerang clan of the Yorta Yorta Nation in the Hume region of Victoria, Australia near Killawara. The national park is situated approximately west of Wangaratta and ...

s, the

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is an Australian city in north-central Victoria. The city is located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2022, Bendigo has a popula ...

region, the

Brisbane Ranges The Brisbane Ranges National Park is a national park in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, The national park is situated approximately west of Melbourne near the town of and is managed by Parks Victoria. The park covers part ...

and

You Yangs The You Yangs are a series of granite ridges that rise up to above the flat and low-lying Werribee Plain in southern Victoria, Australia, approximately due west of the rural town of Little River, southwest of Melbourne CBD and north o ...

, across to Balmoral on the western side of the

Grampians The Grampian Mountains () is one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, that together occupy about half of Scotland. The other two ranges are the Northwest Highlands and the Southern Uplands. The Grampian range extends northeast to so ...

. It is scarce to moderately common within its range. Its preferred habitat is open eucalypt woodland with rocky gullies, tussocky grass, scattered logs, and sparse shrubbery.

Behaviour

The speckled warbler is quiet and well camouflaged. However, when disturbed, it will make a grating twitter and fly to a perch, then soon return to foraging on the ground. Its song is soft, mellow and musical, interspersed with sharp whistles, somewhat like that of the

western gerygone The western gerygone (''Gerygone fusca'') is a small, brownish-grey species of passerine bird, which is found in inland and Southwest Australia, south-west Australia. It is an arboreal, insectivore of open forest, woodland and dry shrubland. It ...

(''Gerygone fusca''). It is also a mimic of other species. Like the

redthroat The redthroat (''Pyrrholaemus brunneus'') is a small, mostly ground-dwelling species of bird in the family Acanthizidae. It is endemic to Australia, occurring mostly in arid and semi-arid areas containing acacia and chenopod shrublands. The spe ...

(''Pyrrholaemus brunneus''), the speckled warbler makes a distinctive whirring sound with its wings in flight.

Breeding

The breeding season is from August to January. It builds a dome-shaped nest with a side-entrance in a slight hollow, near the base of a tree or dense shrub, or among fallen branches. The nest is loosely built of dried grass, bark-shreds and moss, often lined with feathers and fur, and resembling the surrounding debris. It lays a clutch of 3 or 4 eggs, each measuring . The eggs are a reddish-chocolate colour, darker at the large end. The female incubates the eggs for 17-20 days, and then broods the hatchlings. The nestlings are fed by her and the primary male for 15-19 days. The nests are parasitised by the

fan-tailed cuckoo The fan-tailed cuckoo (''Cacomantis flabelliformis'') is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is found in Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Taxonomy Six subspecies have been recogni ...

(''Cacomantis flabelliformis'') and the

black-eared cuckoo The black-eared cuckoo (''Chalcites osculans'') is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. Found across Australia, it migrates to eastern Indonesia and southern New Guinea. They are usually observed by themselves or in a pair as they don't ...

(''Chrysococcyx osculans'').

Diet and foraging

It feeds on the ground, often in the company of other birds ( mixed species flocks), such as the buff-rumped thornbill (''Acanthiza reguloides''),

eastern yellow robin The eastern yellow robin (''Eopsaltria australis'') is an Australasian robin of coastal and sub-coastal eastern Australia. The extent of the eastern yellow robin's residence is from the extreme southeast corner of South Australia through most ...

(''Eopsaltria australis''),

white-browed scrubwren The white-browed scrubwren (''Sericornis frontalis'') is a passerine bird found on the New England Tablelands and coastal areas of Australia. Placed in the family Pardalotidae in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, this has met with opposition and in ...

(''Sericornis frontalis''), spotted pardalote (''Pardalotus punctatus''),

weebill The weebill (''Smicrornis brevirostris'') is a species of bird in the family Acanthizidae. It is an insectivorous passerine that is found throughout mainland Australia. At long, it is Australia's smallest bird. It was originally described by Joh ...

(''Smicrornis brevirostris''), and silver-eye (''Zosterops lateralis''). It is mainly insectivorous, but occasionally eats seeds. Its chief prey are beetles (

Coleoptera Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

), wasps and winged ants (

Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typi ...

), moth and butterfly larvae (

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) or lepidopterans is an order (biology), order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organ ...

), mantids and grasshoppers (

Orthoptera Orthoptera () is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and wētā. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – gras ...

Conservation status

Although relatively abundant with a population estimated at 400,000, the speckled warbler appears to be declining within its range. Threats include land clearance, leading to the advent of invasive weeds and increased predator pressure, as well as over-grazing and salinization with consequent fragmentation and degradation of habitat. Drought and fire also pose ongoing threats. On the IUCN Red List, the speckled warbler was uplisted from

near threatened A near-threatened species is a species which has been Conservation status, categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as that may be vulnerable to Endangered species, endangerment in the ne ...

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

status in 2000, having found to be more common than previously believed. In October 2016, it continued to be assessed as

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

. Speckled warbler are not listed as threatened on the Australian

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cult ...

. It is listed as "vulnerable" under the New South Wales

Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 The ''Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 (TSC Act)'' was enacted by the Parliament of New South Wales in 1995 to protect threatened species, populations and ecological communities in NSW. In 2016 it was replaced by the '' Biodiversity Con ...

. It is listed as "threatened" on the Victorian

Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (1988) The ''Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988'', also known as the ''FFG Act'', is an act of the Victorian Parliament designed to protect species, genetic material and habitats, to prevent extinction and allow maximum genetic diversity within the Au ...

. Under this Act, an ''Action Statement'' for the recovery and future management of this species has not been prepared.Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria
On the 2007 advisory list of threatened vertebrate fauna in Victoria, the speckled warbler is listed as vulnerable.

References

speckled warbler The speckled warbler (''Pyrrholaemus sagittatus'') is a species of bird in the family (biology), family Acanthizidae. It is Endemism, endemic to eastern Australia. Its natural habitat is temperate forests. Taxonomy The speckled warbler was first ...

Birds of Queensland Birds of New South Wales Birds of Victoria (state) Endemic birds of Australia

Articles containing video clips Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Acanthizidae-stub