Habitat
Subtropical, warm temperate and cool temperate rainforests and adjacent open eucalypyt forest with a rainforest understorey. Mostly confined to areas above 600 m but an observation at 240 m has been documented.
Voice
Powrrful, loud and penetrating. Male: a sharp, high-pitched 'cheep, cheep, cheep', starting deliberately, falling and accelerating in rapid staccato. A repeated ringing note. Harsh scoldings. Female: usually silent but a sharp 'tick' or a feeble squeak when eggs or young approached.
Rufous Scrubbird (Atrichornis rufescens) [XC143506]
by Marc Anderson from Border Ranges National Park (near Border Ranges), New South Wales, Australia (call)
Rufous Scrubbird (Atrichornis rufescens) [XC143505]
by Marc Anderson from Border Ranges National Park (near Border Ranges), New South Wales, Australia (song)
Breeding Season (Guide)
Mainly September - December.
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Nest
Round, bulky, with an entrance at the side, composed on the outside with dead leaves, ferns, twigs and broad dried blades of sedge and mat-rush, lined with a smooth surface of dried wood-pulp, usually in a clump of sedge or mat-rush, but sometimes in debris among undergrowth. Construction of the nest takes about a month, mainly to allow the wood-pulp lining to dry.
Eggs (Guide)
2; pink-buff with blotches of red-brown mostly at the larger end; long-oval; about 23 x 18 mm. Incubation: about 36 - 38 days; by female.
Young
Fledge in about 21 - 28 days. Fed by female.
Subspecies
Southern Queensland (Macpherson Range) birds described as subspecies jacksoni are considered indistinguishable from nominate. Subspecies tweedi (from R Tweed, New South Wales) synonymized with nominate.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
rufescens (Ramsay, 1867) - Extreme south-eastern Queensland and far north-eastern New South Wales, east of the Great Divide from Mistake Ranges, Qld south to Gibraltar Ranges, NSW.
ferrieri Schodde & Mason, IJ, 1999 - Central north-eastern New South Wales, east of the Great Divide from Dirrigo Plateau south to Barrington Tops.
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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BirdLife International Species Factsheet