Varied Sittella Identification Challenge

ID CHALLENGE Friday 16 October 2020 L Plate by Janine Duffy

Who are these nifty gals? Seen and photographed by Rosemary Goland at Scotts Creek in SA.

Solution:

Varied Sittella Daphoenositta chrysoptera pileata

When you see that beak, there’s just nothing else in Australia like it! It’s upturned! It’s half yellow half black!

Then there’s that adorable little black helmet, and yellow iris with yellow eye ring making the eyes look huge.

Sittellas are a truly Australasian group. There are only 3 species in the world and they are all in Australia or New Guinea. New Guinea has the Black Sittella and the Papuan Sittella.

Our Varied Sittella is endemic to Australia, ie it occurs nowhere else.

Anyone who knows European or Asian birds might notice their resemblance to nuthatches: that upturned bill, short tail, big strong feet. Some even have the same banded undertail. https://ebird.org/species/chvnut1/

For a long time it was assumed that our sittellas were related to nuthatches. I think the name Sittella comes from Sitta, the genus of nuthatches. But it turns out they are not related, they are an example of convergent evolution.

Interestingly, in this species it’s often the female who is more striking. The black headed ones, like these, are females. In some ssp the females have a streaked head, but in the coastal south-central QLD ssp all adults have a white head.

These are subspecies pileata ‘Black-capped Sittella’, the western subspecies, and both of these are female.

Around Melbourne we get the Orange-winged Sittella ssp chrysoptera, but the two ssp do hybridise near the boundary in western Vic & NSW.

Watch out for the distinctive orange bar in the open wing as they fly – if you’re in southern or eastern Australia. In Northern Australia (NT WA, QLD Cape York) the wing bar is white.

Comments:

Jannette Manins: I spent the last six hours collecting all our Varied Sittella photos and trying to categorise each one. They sure are varied! As the colours in the ABG show, in many areas there is diffusion…interbreeding.
We’ve seen the bird in Vic, NW and SW Qld, NT and the Kimberley. Some are mixed ssp. We don’t have photos of ssp leucocephala or ssp striata.

White-winged Sittella Daphoenositta chrysoptera leucoptera:

Northern Australia: WA, NT, western Qld. Males have black cap, females have black helmet. White wing bar.

Orange-winged Sittella Daphoenositta chrysoptera chrysoptera:

South-eastern Australia: eastern VIC, NSW, southeastern Qld. Males have grey cap & eye mask, females have streaked grey-brown head. Orange wing bar.

Black-capped Sittella Daphoenositta chrysoptera pileata:

Southern Australia: western VIC, SA, WA, southern NT. Males have black cap, females have black helmet. Orange wing bar.