Biodiversity in Australia's National Reserve System - Part ... - BushBlitz

Passerines
Passerines, or the song or perching birds, are the most widely recognised and encountered
group of vertebrates in Australia. The ANHAT database has 4970696 records for 321
species and subspecies of passerines. There are no extinct passerine species. Twenty-one
passerine species account for almost 50% of the total species records in ANHAT (Table 37).
These species have over 66000 records each, with the highly visible and widely distributed
Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) being the mostly highly recorded species with
177667 record sites.
Table 37 Passerine species that account for almost 50% of the total species records in
ANHAT.
Species No. Records % total records
Strepera graculina 66000 1.74
Pachycephala pectoralis 66015 1.74
Acanthiza chrysorrhoa 66058 1.74
Lichenostomus penicillatus 67781 1.78
Acanthiza pusilla 70214 1.85
Sericornis frontalis 70430 1.85
Cracticus torquatus 71059 1.87
Manorina melanocephala 71091 1.87
Anthochaera carunculata 77365 2.03
Rhipidura fuliginosa 85792 2.26
Pachycephala rufiventris 88957 2.34
Corvus coronoides 89050 2.34
Zosterops lateralis 89787 2.36
Pardalotus striatus 94612 2.49
Malurus cyaneus 103747 2.73
Hirundo neoxena 107997 2.84
Coracina novaehollandiae 112681 2.96
Colluricincla harmonica 120510 3.17
Grallina cyanoleuca 142056 3.74
Rhipidura leucophrys 156110 4.10
Gymnorhina tibicen 177667 4.67
Total 1994979 52.47
Ten passerine species are represented by 30 or fewer record sites in the ANHAT database.
None of these species are listed as threatened. The limited number of species does not allow
trends to be identified in this group. However, several vagrants are present in the group and
so are expected to be rarely recorded.
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