Gilbert’s Whistler

Pachycephala inornata

A denizen of semi-arid southern Australia, the drab, uniformly grey Gilbert’s Whistler is seldom seen, as it is rather unobtrusive and easily overlooked, usually preferring to remain concealed among the foliage of the shrubs in mallee or acacia shrublands. It is far more often heard than it is seen, as its rich calls are surprisingly loud, being audible over a great distance. When it is not calling, as happens in autumn and winter, the species is extremely difficult to find.

Description

Males have a blackish mask and a rich orange-buff throat, while females are uniform grey with a pale eye-ring. Their flight is strongly undulating, alternating bursts of strong wing-beats with shallow, swooping glides for short distances between shrubs and close to ground.

Similar Species

Red-lored Whistler and female Golden Whistler.

Distribution

Scattered in much of semi-arid southern Australia.

Habitat

Gilbert’s Whistlers usually inhabit semi-arid mallee or box–ironbark eucalypt, acacia, cypress-pine or Belah shrublands and woodlands (or mixed assemblages of these), usually with a dense, continuous or patchy understorey of shrubs such as acacias, Eremophila, Dodonaea or Cassia; they inhabit these shrubs in the understorey.  They also inhabit thickets of paperbarks, including Broombush, or mixed patches of mallee–Broombush.  Sometimes, they occur in taller eucalypt woodlands or forests, such as in a dense understorey of Chinese Scrub Cassinia arcuata and Golden Wattle in a Mugga Ironbark forest, in Black Box woodland with lignum in the understorey, or in Brown Stringybark woodland with an understorey of Callistemon, Hibbertia and Silver Banksia; floristically, these habitats may seem atypical, but they are structurally similar to other suitable habitats inhabited by the species.  Gilbert’s Whistlers sometimes also occur among regrowth vegetation after the habitat has been disturbed.

Feeding

They forage on the ground, in shrubs or in low trees.

The cache is NOT at the posted coordinates

This Wherigo converts your player into a virtual version of the "Reverse Cache Box" which tells you the bearing to the cache, but not the distance. You may begin your search from any spot in the world using your Smartphone or Whereigo compatible GPS to navigate to the cache.
**As the cartridge produces whole number degrees, the triangulation is not accurate from long distances especially if the 2 readings are taken close together producing an acute angle at intersection, so don't be disheartened by a GZ that seems wrong, go near there and take more readings.**

The cartridge was created by day1976 and is available to download from the wherigo website. day1976's Open Source Reverse Wherigo  .

Start up the player, find and load the cartridge. > NewGame > Find a Geocache > Answer > Enter First Code > xxxxx > Answer > Enter Second Code > xxxxx > Answer > The bearing to this Geocache is xxx degrees. This bearing is from where you are standing. It is now up to you how many times you relocate and obtain different bearings so as to triangulate the cache. The ultimate goal would be to find the cache with just one bearing reading, but for most, it would need a minimum of two bearings. Bearings are with respect to True North, so If using an OS map, allowances will have to be made, as Grid North, Magnetic North, and True North are all different!

To begin, you will have to type these two codes into your player when prompted:

jm34a

47ggd

It is suggested that you take the code with you on your journey. It will be needed if it becomes necessary to restart your player for any reason.

Have Fun!

How to download the Whereigo Cartridge

You may begin your search from any spot in the world using a Whereigo compatible GPS unit or phone app.

Link to day1976's Open Source Reverse Wherigo cartridge.

Log into wherigo.com using your geocaching.com player name and password. The cartridge type used on phone apps is the Pocket PC Device.