I know the're difficult to tell appart and most likely both are Bassian thrush's but just want to make sure. The first picture was taken in the Royal National Park and the second was taken in the Blue Mountains.
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First is definately a Bassian Thrush - you can tell by the anchor pattern on the end of the upper wing.
I would say russet Tailed for the second as it seems a solid end, not an anchor pattern but hard to see properly
Very interesting. I guess what threw me off was the range. Most references put the Russet tailed as being found only north of Sydney and some have even put the southern most range even further north. Are there any other indicators/differences?
You could fairly confidently call them both Bassian based on location alone.
LM
Ok so here's some more pics of the second bird (Blue Mountains) of varying quality and angles. Don't know if it will help
Still hard to get a good look.
Altitude can be another indicator.
Bassian Thrushes tend to be at a higher altitude whereas the Russet-Tailed are normally at lower altitudes.
Sorry I couldn't help more.
Thanks for the help
Anchor pattern visible on the primaries in the 3rd picture. Confirms Bassian.
As previously stated, both range and altitude are strongly suggestive of Bassian. Although overall I would say that range is a better indicator than altitude (as Bassians do occur down to sea level - such as Royal National Park, and Russet-Tails do occur in the mountains at Barrington and Lamington National Park O'Reiley's where I have seen them).
I have found this website useful
http://www.graemechapman.com.au/library/viewphotos.php?c=528
http://www.graemechapman.com.au/library/viewphotos.php?c=788
Dave, Sydney.
Thanks mate. After i posted the pictures and looked at them carefully i also noticed the anchor patterns.
Thanks Dave, that will be useful for me to. Have always been puzzled as to how to distinguish them reliably
Ryu
Canberra
Aiming for DSLR-quality shots with a bridge camera
Happy to help. It's great to get a reliable identifier to separate them, otherwise it's near impossible. Then you end up going round in circles (much like the Collared Sparrowhawk / Brown Goshawk debates! Don't get me started hahaha).
Dave, Sydney.