BIRD OF THE WEEK

 DUSKY WOODSWALLOW

This week our Bird of the Week is a specie to represent a genus of birds which are primarily Australian in distribution.

The Bird of the Week is the Dusky Woodswallow. And the genus is Artamus and  in it are some eleven species. Six of them are found within Australia. Other members are found in New Guinea, SE Asia, Sulawesi and Fiji. Think of stout little birds that have been created by crossing flycatchers with much sleeker swallows. Like both flycatchers and swallows they feed on insects on the wing.

The Dusky Woodswallow is joined in Australia by the Little, White breasted, Black faced, Masked, White browed.

The Dusky Woodswallow is a predominately brown bird which has a distinct white leading edge on its wing.

It is a migrant that heads vaguely north each autumn and winter; the birds leave Tasmania in April and can be seen as far north as Rockhampton in central Queensland. Certainly each winter on the Sunshine Coast hinterland we can get good numbers of Dusky Woodswallows.

Dusky Woodswallows swarm together to fend off the cold. I captured the image above on a freezing [well very cold] morning in the forests near Jimna, itself on the western parts of the Sunshine coast hinterland. It is an uncommon picture as the birds probably more often than not assemble like this at night.

More commonly on the Sunshine Coast is the White breasted Woodswallow.

To see the other species a Sunshine Coast birder basically needs to head north and west.

Now this is a subject that every birder in Australia has considered from time to time; the naming fiasco that is the Black faced versus Masked in Woodswallows. The short story is the Masked Woodswallow has a large black face [almost exactly like a Black faced Cuckoo shrike]. The Black faced Woodswallow, in an appalling contrast, has a limited area of black on its face, kinda like a mask….. Check out the pictures and decide for yourselves whether a huge error has been made!!

Black faced Woodswallow

Masked Woodswallow

The last two species are better named. The Little Woodswallow is indeed smaller than the rest. It does look superficially like a small Dusky although it does also lack the leading white on the wing.

The White browed Woodswallow is a strongly nomadic bird, ranging over most of the continent, often in the company with Masked. It is difficult to see just one or two of these birds as they are often in very large flocks.     

White-browed Woodswallow

Any of our tours that venture in the wilds of western Queensland offer chances to see most of Australia’s Woodswallow species!