Yellow Thornbill

Spring has sprung. Heard my first Fan-tailed Cuckoo and Australian reed Warbler recently. And, there is wattle in flower on all the roadsides.

The Silver Wattles in Balfour Rd (Drouin), seem to be home for a permanent colony of Yellow Thornbills. They’re present year-round.

Yellow Thornbills lack the striations of our two most familiar thornbills in this district, the Brown Thornbill and the Striated Thornbill. The Yellow Thornbill does have some pale streaking on its cheek though, but is otherwise a fairly plain olive-brown to yellow bird.

Described as sedentary with little movement throughout the year, Yellow Thornbills tend to avoid eucalypts, keeping to trees with bushier and feather-like foliage: acacia, casuarina, melaleuca and similar. Like their Striated Thornbill cousins, they are fairly unobtrusive in the canopy.

Yellow Thornbills are endemic to south eastern Australia from about Rockhampton to Adelaide, avoiding the colder and wetter areas of the high country. They have a harsh, double-note call repeated at short intervals.