39 Tune Your Ear - Whistlers
About this episode
Whistlers can fill the bush with calls that feel both familiar and hard to place. This Tune Your Ear episode helps you learn the calls of Australian whistlers, including Golden Whistler, Rufous Whistler and White-breasted Whistler.
Episode illustration: Rufous Whistler
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Kirsty: This episode was recorded on the country of the Taungurung people. They are the Traditional Owners of a large part of central Victoria to the north of the Great Dividing Range. They are many clans sharing one language and a deep spiritual connection with Country. I would like to pay my respects to Elders past and present who hold cultural knowledge and practice. I would also like to pay my respects to any First Nations person listening to this podcast.
Kirsty: I'm Kirsty Costa and this is Weekend Birder Podcast. Welcome to friends, old and new and apologies for my slightly croaky voice. In the last Tune Your Ear episode, we listened to the squawks and the screeches of seven types of lorikeets. I'm hoping that this episode will be a bit gentler on your ears because we are going to tune our ear to the melodic sound of Australia's nine whistlers. These birds actually belong to the same family as the shrike tits and the shrike thrushes. Like other birds, whistlers communicate for different reasons and they'll actually adjust their communication depending on their environment. The pitch and rhythm of the calls that you are about to hear may be slightly different to the birds in your local area, but listening to these recordings is a great start. Okay, let's tune our ears to the call of the Rufous Whistler. This bird is Australia's most widespread whistler and can be found in eucalyptus forests and mallee in most places, except for Tasmania. The word 'rufous' is a common birdwatchers term and it means rusty color. And the Rufous Whistler is named after the rusty coloured feathers that males have got on their belly. Males also have a very distinctive white chin patch and a head full of black feathers. Female Rufous Whistlers are mostly a pale grey colour. Their belly is a very pale rust colour and there are fine streaks running down onto their chest. This recording of a Rufous Whistler calling at dawn is by Khristos Nizamis at Gluepot in South Australia on Erawirung country. Listen out for their, "eeeeee-chong" and "joey joey joey".
<Recording of Rufuous Whistler>
Kirsty: The Gilbert's Whistler is a shyer whistler and is usually heard before it is seen. You will find it in dry scrub, woodland and mallee patches in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. The male is a brownish-grey with a black patch between its red eyes and its bill. It has an orangey-rufous, chin and throat. The female Gilbert's Whistler can be tricky to tell apart from other whistlers. It is grey in colour and paler under the tail than the Golden Whistler. Its call can be heard up to 900m away. This recording is by Marc Anderson at Nombinni Nature Reserve in New South Wales on Wiradjuri Country. Listen out for its "er-whittt" call.
<Recording of Gilbert's Whistler>
Kirsty: Sometimes the Gilbert's Whistler also makes a very cute, "chop, chop, chop" call. In Episode 36 of Weekend Birder, Charuka Abeywickrama shared some of the stories of his Big Year. In 2022, he took photographs of 772 bird species. What an incredible achievement! Charuka wanted to start his big year by taking a photograph of the Red-lored Whistler.
Charuka: We were going to drive down to Murray-Sunset (National Park) and on 1st of January I actually wanted to photograph a Red-lored Whistler. That bird is a very rare bird. And actually that is a bird that eluded me for a year and a half. So every time I go there, either I get a glimpse of the bird or I just didn't get a good photo. So I thought it would be important for me to start with this bird. Unfortunately, on the 31st of December evening, as I was driving towards Murray-Sunset, I thought I would fill my petrol tank so that I don't have to worry for next two days. Unfortunately, I ended up putting Adblue (diesel) to my car and the car stopped after 500m. So this is the 31st of night and where everybody is having New Year's Eve parties. I was stuck on the roadside helpless. So anyway, to make the story short, on New Years Day I managed to tow the car to Mildura and drained by petrol tank and sort that out. Then I decided "Okay, maybe it's bad luck to photograph the Red-lored Whistler as I drove towards to those areas". Then we found a seven emus. So I thought, "Okay, that's an iconic bird for Australia, you know. That's right and fitting for me to photograph as the first bird".
Kirsty: I love that story and I'm glad that emus turned up when they did for Charuka. There aren't many Red-lored Whistlers left in Australia. They are actually listed as Critically Endangered in New South Wales, Vulnerable in Victoria and Rare in South Australia. So any time you hear a Red-lored Whistler is super precious. In ornithology, the lore is the region between the eye and the bill on the side of a bird's head. And, you guessed it, the lore on the male Red-lored Whistler is orange. That's right, orange. It also has an orange throat and belly with the rest of its feathers a brownish-grey. The female has a paler orange lore and throat. This recording is by Niels Poul Dreyer at Round Hill Nature Reserve in New South Wales on Ngi-yam-paa Country. Listen out for the high-pitched "eee-ya eee-ya".
<Recording of Red-lored Whistler>
Kirsty: Whistlers build their cup shaped nests by weaving together twigs, grass and bark. They may also choose to hold their nests together using collected spider web. Most Whistler's are monogamous, which means that they have one partner at a time. They will share nest building duties from September to December and lay about 2 to 3 eggs. So, ornithology got it right this time - the Olive Whistler, which is our next whistler, is indeed olive in colour. The male has a dark-grey head, olive-brown upper body, a grey throat and a buff-brown belly. The female looks similar but paler in colour. Some people say that the Olive Whistler has the richest range of calls of all the whistlers. I'll let you be the judge. It is also the largest of Australia's whistlers, standing at 20cm tall. You will hear its call in the wet forest and coastal shrubs of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and a smidge of South Australia. This recording is by Marc Anderson at Ansons Bay in Tasmania on Pyemmairrrener Country. Listen out for "ee ee-yore wii".
<Recording of an Olive Whistler>
Kirsty: Up next is one of my favorites, the Golden Whistler. Males often pop out on the branch of a tree when I'm walking in the coastal woodlands of Victoria. You'll also find them in forests and rainforests in Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland. Thanks to previous Weekend Birder guests, we've learnt about how Golden Whistlers migrate in their local area, moving to where there is food and shelter. Here's John Forrester talking about Golden Whistlers and other birds that move up and down the Werribee River in Melbourne.
John: Then you start entering the foothills of the Great Dividing Range and you're heading up in towards the wombat forest. So you're starting to get a few other species, such as, say, Flame Robins, Golden Whistlers and others which do fly down to the Werribee end of the Werribee River or the Wyndham area in our summer again. So there's a couple of migratory species both from overseas and then as you get inland you find locally migratory species such as the Golden Whistler and others that move up and down the river.
Kirsty: You can hear more from John in Episode 19. The male Golden Whistler is a bright lemon-yellow bird with a black head and white throat. Its wings and back are grey. The female has an olive-brown and grey body with a cream-coloured underbelly. And young Golden Whistlers look really similar to females. This recording is by Craig Robertson on Norfolk Island, which is the traditional land of the Pitcairn Islanders. Listen out for the Golden Whistler's, "tchee tchee tchee tchee-wit" call.
<Recording of Golden Whistler>
Kirsty: Remember how I mentioned that the same type of bird can sound a bit different depending on its location? This recording was taken on my phone in Barmah National Park on Yorta Yorta country in New South Wales. Hear how this Golden Whistler has a very cute little whistle that ends with a drawn out "seep" sound.
<Recording of Golden Whistler>
Kirsty: The Western Whistler looks almost identical to the Golden Whistler. In fact, it was always considered to be a Golden Whistler found in Western Australia. In 2020, this all changed though when genetic data showed that it was actually different enough to be its own species. And this also led to scientists realising that the yellow-coloured whistler is found in South Australia were also part of this same genetic pool rather than the Golden Whistler. And so the South Australian Golden Whistler is now also known as the Western Whistler. This is handy to know if you're looking at an old bird book compared to one published after 2020. This recording of the Western Whistler is by Marc Anderson at Drandra Woodland National Park in Western Australia on Wiilman Country. And listen to how similar its call is to the Golden Whistler.
<Recording of Western Whistler>
Kirsty: We are now heading up to the Top End of Australia for our last three whistlers. The Mangrove Golden Whistler is also known as the black tailed whistler. It is found in the mangrove forests of the very top of Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. As you might have guessed, this bird is closely related to the Golden Whistler, which is found further south. The only place where the Mangrove Golden Whistler and the Golden Whistler hang out together is a very small patch of Queensland coast and their habitat will give them away. This recording is by Todd Mark on Little Pigeon Island. This island is part of an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. Listen for its "wit wit whitchel" call.
<Recording of Mangrove Golden Whistler>
Kirsty: You might have noticed in my descriptions that female whistlers look different to their male partners. This is known as sexual dimorphism, and there is a very important reason for this. Dr. Vicky Austin told us more about it in Episode 17.
Vicki: Males and females act differently because they have different goals or purposes if you want to say in the way they behave. We often think about it in terms of the term sexual selection, which is someone, a very famous scientist called Charles Darwin termed. And basically he observed birds in the wild and he noticed that males were really colorful and really loud. And he proposed this idea that the reason males are colorful and loud is because females are selecting males. They were only mate with males that have those beautiful colors and those beautiful songs because that color and that song is a sign of their quality. And so, of course, if you're going to have offspring, you want to mate with the prettiest, most clever male that there is. And so this idea of sexual selection on males accounts for why they're so beautiful and colorful and loud. But females aren't being selected for usually there are exceptions. There are cases where females are attracting mates, but it's not usual. The most common thing is that male birds attract females. And so what that means is females have no need for these elaborate colors per se in the same way that males do. So their song doesn't have to be as complex and ornate or beautiful as males because they're not trying to impress anyone in the same way. But they do have beautiful song and they do have complex song and they can be pretty. They do have pressures acting on them. They're just not in the same way that they are a male. So for females, your main motivation for singing, for example, would be that you are protecting your young or your territory. And females, by and large, do the majority of care in most species. Again, there are exceptions, always exceptions, but in most species. And so because of that there is pressure for females to sing. But the context in which they use their song and their vocalisations is different. And so that really kind of is the basis for why males and females both have song but may not sing as much as each other. Use them in different contexts, and also accounts for the differences in plumage that you see as well.
Kirsty: The only whistler that isn't sexually dimorphic is the Grey Whistler, which is also known as the Brown Whistler or Grey-headed Whistler. It's the smallest of the whistlers, standing at 15cm tall. It is found in the top part of the Northern Territory near Darwin and the top part of Queensland in mangroves, wet forests and swampy woodlands. Like other whistlers, it can live up to 6 to 7 years. This recording is by Phil Gregory in Julatten in Queensland, up near Port Douglas on Koko Muluridji Country. Listen for its three note song "ee-ee-you".
<Recording of Grey Whistler>
Kirsty: The final whistler that we're going to tune out ear to is the White-breasted Whistler. The first thing that you'll notice about this whistler is that its beak is really different to the rest of the whistlers in Australia. Other whistlers have got this short and slightly curved bill or beak. The White-breasted Whistler has a longer and thicker hooked bill. It uses this bill to pull crustaceans out of the mud at low tide in the mangrove forests of the top end of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. The male White-breasted Whistler is grey above its body and white below. It has black feathers on its head. It also has an awesome black and brown collar and a white throat. The female is grey, above and pale below and has fine streaks that fade into an almost white belly. This recording is by Nigel Jackett at Broome Bird Observatory in Western Australia on Ya-wu-ru Country. Listen out for its whistling call, a two-note rising "ferrrr-whittt" and "cho cho cho cheweeet".
<Recording of White-breasted Whistler>
Kirsty: You have just listened to Australia's nine whistlers. Well done! When Europeans first encountered Australian birds in the 18th and 19th Centuries, they gave them names similar to the birds found in the Northern Hemisphere. These names led to the scientific idea that songbirds evolved in the Northern Hemisphere in the 1970s. Molecular research revealed that the opposite is actually true. It proved what is already part of the traditional knowledge of First Nations people in Australia that songbirds actually originated from here (in Australia). Whistlers and other songbirds are the survivors of the ancestral species that left Australia and gave rise to the songbirds of the Northern Hemisphere. That blows my mind to think about and it also really makes me appreciate Whistlers even more. You can learn more about bird evolution in Tim Low's book 'Where Song Began'. All recordings in this episode were shared on the Xeno-canto website and we are so grateful to the recordings for their amazing talents. I've popped some links in the show notes and on the Weekend Bird website. If you would like to tune your ear in a bit more in the next Tune Your Ear episode, we are heading to the wetlands. I'll see you there.
