Other Names (World)
Little Grassbird, Little Marshbird, Striated Marshbird, Little Reedbird, Striated Reedbird, Striated Grassbird, Dark Grassbird, Southern Grassbird, Victorian Grassbird, Marsh Warbler, Regatta Bird
Family
Locustellidae (Grasshopper-warblers And Grassbirds)
Habitat
Dense vegetation in and on margins of wetlands, both fresh and saline, including swamps, lakes, saltmarshes, estuaries, creeks and rivers, saltworks, sewerage ponds.
Little Grassbird (Poodytes gramineus) [XC331654]
by Marc Anderson from Wallerawang, Lithgow City Council, New South Wales, Australia (call, song)
Little Grassbird (Poodytes gramineus) [XC826861]
by Peter Boesman from Loccota, Flinders Council, Tasmania, Australia (call)
Nest
A deep cup, narrower at the rim, composed of grasses and aquatic plants and lined with feathers, in a tussock of rushes growing in or near water, in a swamp tea-tree or in a mangrove tree.
Eggs (Guide)
3 - 5; white or pink tinged, uniformly speckled or dotted with purple-red; long-oval; about 19 x 14 mm. Incubation: about 14 days; by both sexes.
Young
Probably altricial, nidicolous. Fledge in 10 - 14 days.
Subspecies
Plumage pattern and biogeography suggest ancestral link with New Zealand Fernbird (Poodytes punctatus) of New Zealand, and possibly also with Madagascan Madagascar Grassbird (Amphilais seebohmi). Validity of virtually unknown subspecies papuensis requires confirmation, as it may have involved a vagrant from Australia.
The following 4 subspecies are recognised:
gramineus (Gould, 1845) - Tasmania and islands of Bass Strait.
goulburni (Mathews, 1912) - South-eastern and central-eastern mainland Australia from southern Gulf of Carpentaria and the foot of Cape York Peninsula south and west to central Australia and Lake Eyre Basin, Kangaroo Island and Eyre Peninsula, SA, with outliers north-west to eastern Kimberley Divide, WA.
thomasi (Mathews, 1912) - South-western Australia from around Esperance north-west to north-eastern and eastern Wheatbelt and then north to the lower Gascoyne River, WA.
papuensis (Junge, 1952) - Western New Guinea (Wissel Lakes area, in western Snow Mts).
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