mdahlem.net WWW

Aust birds    Bird names   News   1-26    Habitats    Key plants    Glossary    Plumage    Nests    Tips    Thumbnails    Gen. info    Sponsors    Photos for sale
NON-PASSERINES     1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10     11     12     13     14	15     16     17     18     19     20     21     22     23     24     25     26     PASSERINES
Common names sorted alphabetically: A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   W   Y

21

Yellow-breasted Boatbill (Machaerirhynchus flaviventer) Alternate name(s): "Boat-billed Flycatcher", "Yellow-breasted Wherrybill", "Yellow-breasted Flatbill", "Yellow-breasted Flycatcher" Size: 11-12.5 cm Weight: 9-12 g

Australia: Family Group 21 Family Group 21 Table White-eared Monarch Pied Monarch Frill-necked Monarch Black-faced Monarch Black-winged Monarch Spectacled Monarch Yellow-breasted Boatbill Broad-billed Flycatcher Leaden Flycatcher Satin Flycatcher Shining Flycatcher Restless Flycatcher Paperbark Flycatcher Rufous Fantail Arafura Fantail Mangrove Grey Fantail Grey Fantail Northern Fantail Willie Wagtail Spangled Drongo Magpie-lark Thumbnails page Family group table Index of bird names Habitat pages Key plants Birds home page

Description     Classification     Distribution     Sightings     Photos     Breeding     Nest     Eggs     Behaviour     Food     Call/s

Physical description Click here for a physical description Yellow-breasted Boatbills are very small flycatchers. Their plumage is dimorphic, i.e. males and females are slightly different. Like all Australian flycatchers, they have "whiskers" on both sides of the bill. Male Yellow-breasted Boatbills have a black cap, a wide black eye stripe, black ear coverts, lores and black shoulders with two white bars. The long, wide, yellow eyebrows reach from the base of the bill to behind the ear coverts. The front, down to the undertail coverts, is bright yellow, except for a white throat patch. The back is dark-grey to dark-olive. The flight feathers are dark-grey to black, with narrow yellow to olive edge lining. The dark-grey tail feathers have white terminal outer edges. Female Yellow-breasted Boatbills have a much larger whitish throat patch than the males and their front is greyish olive-yellow, with some darker grey chevrons. The cap and back, which are near-black in males, are dark-olive in females. The bills of both sexes are very wide; the males' bill is black, females have a dark-grey bill. Both sexes have eyes with dark irises. The legs and feet of both sexes are grey. Juveniles resemble females, but have more brownish wings.

Taxonomy, classification See Yellow-breasted Boatbill at Wikipedia .

Range, habitat, finding this species Click here for information on habitat and range The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org . The global distribution of the Yellow-breasted Boatbill is available HERE . Yellow-breasted Boatbills populate West Papua (eastern Indonesia), New Guinea and north-eastern Australia. In Australia two races can be found, both of which are endemic. Nominate race "flaviventer" occurs only in a (near-)coastal fringe along the tip of Cape York peninsula, in Far-North QLD. On the East coast their range goes as far South as almost Cape Melville. Race "secundus" resides farther South along the QLD East coast, from about Black Mountain NP in the North to Townsville, QLD, in the South. Yellow-breasted Boatbills are found only in tropical/subtropical rainforest.

Sightings Click here for sighting information Race "secundus" B. Hensen reports spotting Yellow-breasted Boatbills, race "secundus", at Julatten, QLD, in July 2013. M. Eaton reports finding a Yellow-breasted Boatbill, race "secundus", at Julatten, QLD, in July 2018. Another was found at Paluma Rainforest, near Townsville, QLD, in September 2020. J. Boettcher, FNQ Nature Tours found a Yellow-breasted Boatbill, race "secundus", at Cape Tribulation, QLD, in December 2019.

Photos

Race "secundus"

ADULT

MALE

Frontal view of a male Yellow-breasted Boatbill (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Julatten, QLD, July 2013]

Near-frontal view of a male Yellow-breasted Boatbill (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Julatten, QLD, July 2013]

Lateral view of a male Yellow-breasted Boatbill (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Julatten, QLD, July 2013]

FEMALE

Near-frontal view of a female Yellow-breasted Boatbill (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Julatten, QLD, July 2013]

Near-frontal view of a female Yellow-breasted Boatbill looking for prey (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Julatten, QLD, July 2013]

Near-lateral/ventral view of a female Yellow-breasted Boatbill; note the name-giving extremely wide bill
(photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Julatten, QLD, July 2013]

Lateral view of a female Yellow-breasted Boatbill (photo courtesy of J. Boettcher, FNQ Nature Tours)
[Cape Tribulation, QLD, December 2019]

Dorsal/ventral view of a female Yellow-breasted Boatbill (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Julatten, QLD, July 2018]

Call(s)/Song

For this species we have recorded the following call(s)/song. The interpretation of their meaning is our own; comments and suggestions for improvement are welcome.

ybrboat_me_20200927.m4a	secundus (N QLD)	Contact calls?	© ME
ybrboat_me_20200927_2.m4a	secundus (N QLD)	Contact calls?	© ME
ybrboat_me_20200927_3.m4a	secundus (N QLD)	Contact calls?	© ME

More Yellow-breasted Boatbill sound recordings are available at xeno-canto.org .

These pages are largely based on our own observations and those of our contributors. The structure of these bird pages is explained HERE. For more salient facts on any bird species please refer to a field guide.

Would you like to contribute photos or sound recordings to this site? If interested, please CLICK HERE. Credits to contributors are given HERE.

Disclaimer: Comments are always welcome. We give no guarantee that the information presented on these pages is always correct or up-to-date. External links are marked as such and we take no responsibility for the contents of external pages. All images on this site are protected by copyright & used by permission of the respective owners. If you wish to reproduce them or any of the material presented on this web site, please contact us: We hereby acknowledge the original custodians of the land which is described on these pages, including the Gomeroi/Gamilaraay people of the North-west Slopes and Plains of NSW, and the traditional owners of other lands and nations within this country. We acknowledge elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded.          Last updated: Wed, 15 June 2022, 1:19 +00:00