In Australia Yellow-breasted Boatbills are found only in NE Queensland, from the Paluma Range west of Townsville north to Cape York. They inhabit a range of different types of rainforest where they forage in the middle levels, catching most of their food in flight for which the very broad bill, flanked by long bristles, is ideally adapted.

In the lighter types of rainforest such as coastal vine thicket they are easier to see than in tall rainforest like at Iron Range where I heard them a lot but didn't see many. I found Broadwater Forest Park west of Ingham an ideal place to watch and photograph them. On the north side of the camping area there is a light scrub where they often foraged just a few metres from the ground - better than neck-breaking in the rainforest!

For such common little birds, very little is known about their life history. This is exemplified by the fact that there are only three nest records in The Australian Nest Record Scheme, not surprising because the flimsy little nest is usually built amongst the outer foliage of a long horizontal branch at a considerable height (up to 20 m or so) from the ground, not the easiest place to monitor.