WA State Checklists

Frustrated by the lack of a regularly updated and published checklist of Western Australian birds, we here at Leeuwin Current Birding have decided to create our own. We will aim to keep this updated at least annually via this post to account for new vagrants, and also for taxonomic changes according to the latest IOC checklist.

The 'official' State list (at least for legislative purposes) is maintained by the WA Museum as part of their official "Checklist of Terrestrial Vertebrate Fauna", but their list differs from ours in including Ashmore Reef, and also in applying its own rather unique taxonomic decisions (which, for example, recognises Western Whistler as a full species, but not Western Yellow Robin). 

Our WA list includes island and sea-based records from Australian waters out to 200 nautical miles from the mainland, unless closer to another country. That last clause excludes Ashmore and Cartier Reefs, which are not only much closer to Timor than Australia, but are also explicitly excised from Western Australia geopolitically as External Territories. However the vagrant-rich Browse Island is much closer to WA and also gazetted as a state nature reserve, so is included.

Download the latest LCB WA State Checklist here:

       WA State Checklist IOC 14.1 2024

The many 'Westerns' of Western Australia. From top left: Western Corella, Western Rosella, Western Spinebill, Western Thornbill, Western Whistler (no longer endemic), Western Wattlebird. 

We also maintain a handy checklist of the endemic (and 'almost endemic') bird taxa of WA, including endemic subspecies:

     Checklist of WA endemics 2024

or see our previous blogs on the topic:

     WA Endemic subspecies:
     Part 1: Southwest
     Part 2: Pilbara and arid zone
     Part 3: Kimberley

The naming of Gilbert's Honeyeater

“If you have not already honoured my poor name in your works, I know of no species that would delight me more than … this beautiful bird”, wrote John Gilbert to the famous ornithologist John Gould in 1844. Gould rebuffed him, “…as I have lately named a Pachycephala after you I cannot with propriety add your name to this new bird”. The beautiful new bird discussed was the now-extinct Paradise Parrot, one of Gilbert’s most famous discoveries, and the Pachycephala was of course Gilbert’s Whistler. However Gould had erred, not realising he had already described the whistler a few years earlier. Thus the honorific was relegated to the western subspecies P. inornata gilbertii, and it is only by chance that the English name of an Australian bird still honours his faithful collector John Gilbert.

More than 170 years later, the influential IOC World Bird List [1] did what Gould found so difficult, when on 23rd April 2015 they quietly renamed Melithreptus chloropsis as Gilbert’s Honeyeater. The same English name was adopted when the species was finally split on the eBird/Clements checklist in August 2015. The background to this name change reveals an interesting story of a Western Australian ornithological pioneers, and of modern-day debates about taxonomy and nomenclature.

Gilbert's Honeyeater Melithreptus chloropsis (subadult). Donnelley River, WA

New almost-endemic species for WA: Western Whistler

WA gained a surprise almost-endemic species recently when the south-western forms of Golden Whistler were split by the IOC (on Dec 31) as the full species Western Whistler Pachycephala occidentalis.

Western Whistler Pachycephala occidentalis, adult male at Wungong Gorge near Perth

The curious case of the Red-bellied Spinipig

NB: The following should be prefaced - in the manner of any modern climate debate - with “…I’m not a taxonomic scientist, BUT…”

The July release of the “Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines” (del Hoyo & Collar, Lynx Edicions/BirdLife) [1] marks the start of the brave new era in which BirdLife International team up with the Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) crew on the impressively ambitious, if slightly mad, project to review and illustrate the entirety of the world’s avifauna in two volumes. Since BirdLife Australia will adopt these changes by default, unfortunately this means Australia’s ‘official’ bird list is, yet again (groan), being decided by A BOOK. And in this case, a book extraordinarily revising all the species of the world on the premise of a single scientific paper, Tobias et al’s 2010 paper, “Quantitative limits for species delimitation” [2] [available open access here]. The Tobias paper outlines a hitherto untested numerical scoring method for defining whether a pair of related taxa are ‘distinct enough’ to qualify as separate species. The method uses sympatric (co-existing, hence undisputed) species pairs to calibrate a universal threshold, which can then be used to test allopatric (geographically separated) pairs, which can be much harder to define. The answer, it turns out, is 7.* 

In a rather left-field move, HBW/BirdlLife have thus resplit the Pilbara’s “Rufous-bellied Spinifex Pigeon” (or spinipig as the locals call them) Geophaps ferruginea, which compared to nominate plumifera (now White-bellied Spinifex Pigeon), is:

• generally redder [ferruginea = rusty]
• entirely red-brown below, lacking a white belly
• richer red-brown above (plumifera more grey-brown)
• only a grey and black pectoral band, i.e. lacks white band
• slightly smaller
• plume slightly shorter [3]
• iris red to orange-red (cf. yellow to orange-yellow) [4]

"Red-bellied" Spinifex Pigeon Geophaps [plumifera] ferruginea, Wickham WA. Note the red (not grey-brown) back.

The cline and fall of Western Fieldwren

The Western Fieldwren (Calamanthus [campestris] montanellus) has long had an on-again, off-again place on the Australian list. Even as the 1926 official RAOU Checklist [1] listed four Fieldwrens - Striated (fuliginosus), Rufous (campestris), Rusty (isabellinus/rubiginosus), and ‘Rock Fieldwren’ (montanellus) – the contemporary list of Mathews [2] listed only Striated and Rufous as species. A parallel situation exists today, with the international taxonomy of the IOC [3] recognizing montanellus as the full species Western Fieldwren, while Clements and the ‘official’ checklist of Christidis & Boles [4] lump it with Rufous. But it’s easy to forget that back then – until 1983 in fact - the ‘lumpers’ routinely aligned montanellus with Striated Fieldwren, on the basis of their shared olive and yellow (and lack of rufous) colouration. 

Given that interest is now stirring over how the ‘official’ Australian list will be maintained in the future, it’s worth a look back over the long-simmering arguments around the species status of the Western Fieldwren. 



Western Fieldwren Calamanthus [campestris] montanellus from the Stirling Ranges. Note the olive toned and heavily-streaked back; creamy-buffy underparts; russet on head confined to forehead; limited rufous in rump and tailbase; brown (not chestnut) lores; dull tail tips. This individual has a little more rufous than a ‘classic’ montanellus, notably in the cap and fringing on the wings.
[Image © Kay Parkin (http://kayparkinbirding.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/cheynes-beach-south-west-wa.html),
used with permission]

South-west Endemics Part 2: White-breasted Robin

The White-breasted Robin (Eopsaltria georgiana) is a characteristic resident of tangled gullies and thick understorey in the karri and jarrah forests of south-west WA, though there is also a lesser-known relict population in coastal gully thickets north of Perth. “A quietly garbed but attractive bird” was Serventy and Whittell’s description [1], capturing surprise that a grey and white robin should be so much more striking than a plumage description would make it sound.

White-breasted Robin Eopsaltria georgiana

“Peculiar” was Leach’s more prosaic assessment [2]. Taxonomy of the White-breasted Robin has been surprisingly controversial, given that to superficial appearances it seems a typical (if colourless) Eopsaltria robin. It shares many mannerisms with the Eastern and Western Yellow Robins, such as the habit of clinging sideways to low trunks and branches, motionless except for occasional flicking of the tail and wings. Like them it is initially shy but hopelessly inquisitive, and cannot resist checking you out if you sit still for a moment. Indeed it is so similar to the Yellow Robins that this complex has long been considered a classic example of speciation by double invasion, with successive waves into the south-west forests evolving to lose all (White-breasted Robin) or half (Western Yellow Robin) of an originally fully yellow breast (Eastern Yellow Robin).

However it has sufficient differences from the Yellow Robins, particularly its eggs, to persistently trouble taxonomists. Campbell first removed it from Eopsaltria to Amaurodryas (now Melanodryas) based on a perceived “oological” association with the Dusky Robin of Tasmania; Mathews lumped it instead with Mangrove Robin in the genus Quoyornis, where it remained isolated for some time after Mangrove Robin was split off to yet another monospecific genus Peneonanthe [2]. However a 2009 molecular phylogenetic study [3] reported the unexpected finding that the White-breasted Robin may instead be most closely related to the ‘other’ yellow robins - the two Tregellasia robins (the White-faced and Pale Yellow Robin of north-eastern rainforests).
UPDATE: Christidis et al 2011 [6] confimed this unexpected paraphyletic status of Eopsaltria and recommended that White-breasted Robin return to the genus Quoyornis.