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| Scrub-birds | ||||||||||||
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Scrub-birds are shy, secretive, ground-dwelling birds of the family Atrichornithidae. There are just two species, one of them rare and very restricted in its range, the other so rare that until 1961 it was thought to be extinct. Both are native to Australia.
The scrub-bird family is ancient and is understood to be most closely related to the lyrebirds, and probably also the bowerbirds and treecreepers. All four families originated with the great corvid radiation of the Australia-New Guinea region.
Both living species are about the same size as a Common Starling (roughly 20 cm long) and cryptically coloured in drab browns and blacks. They occupy dense undergrowth—the Rufous Scrub-bird in temperate rain forests near the Queensland- New South Wales border, the Noisy Scrub-bird in heaths and scrubby gullies in semi-arid Western AustraliaWestern Australia State flag ( In detail) Coat of Arms ( In detail) Capital Perth Governor HE Lieutenant General John Sanderson Premier Dr Geoff Gallop Area — Land — Marine — Total 2 529 875 km˛ 115 740 km˛ 2 645 615 km˛ Population Density 1 952 280 (2003—and are adept at scuttling mouse-like under cover to avoid notice. They run fast but their flight is feeble.
The males' calls, however, are powerful: ringing and metallic, with a ventriloquial quality, so loud as to be heard from a long distance in heavy scrub and almost painful at close range. Females build a domed nest close to the ground and take sole responsibility for raising the young.
The entire world population of the Noisy Scrub-bird was estimated at 40 to 45 birds in 1962. Conservation efforts succeeded in increasing the population to around 400 birds by the mid- 1980sMillennia: 1st millennium 2nd millennium 3rd millennium Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s Years: 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 Events and trends, and they have subsequently been reintroduced to several sites, but remain endangered.