Black-backed Butcherbird
Cracticus mentalis
Medium-sized black-and-white predator with a white chin. Smaller than Australian Magpie, with a black head and face (remember to check for white chin), black back, black wing tips, and mostly black tail. Bill is long and pale with dark, hooked tip. Found on Cape York in open forests and drier areas. Voice is similar to Gray Butcherbird, with rolling chuckling notes.
Identification
Like other butcherbirds, the black-backed butcherbird is a stockily built bird with a relatively large head and short wings and legs. It is around 25 cm (10 in) long. Australian birds are smaller than those from New Guinea. Its plumage is predominantly black and white. It has a black head and lores, lower back and wings, with white nape, throat and underparts. The wings feathers are edged with white. The rump and base of tail are grey. The eyes are a dark brown, the legs grey and the bill a pale bluish grey tipped with black, with a prominent hook at the end.<p>The plumage of the juvenile has an untidy brown and white plumage with the same general pattern as the adult, with a darker bill.
Taxonomy
The black-backed butcherbird was first described by Italian explorers and naturalists Tommaso Salvadori and Luigi D'Albertis in 1876. Although its scientific name translates as "mental noisy bird", the species epithet mentalis refers to its chin not its mind. It is one of six (or seven) members of the genus Cracticus known as butcherbirds. Within the genus, it is most closely related to the grey and silver-backed butcherbirds. The three form a monophyletic group—the subgenus Bulestes—within the genus, having diverged from ancestors of the pied butcherbird around five million years ago.<p>An alternate common name is white-throated butcherbird to distinguish it from the pied butcherbird, which has a black throat.<p>Gregory Mathews described the Australian population as a separate subspecies kempi in 1912, citing less white plumage on the nape and tail. However Amadon did not observe this difference.<p>The butcherbirds, Australian magpie and currawongs were placed in the family Cracticidae in 1914 by John Albert Leach after he had studied their musculature. American ornithologists Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist recognised the close relationship between woodswallows and the butcherbirds in 1985, and combined them into a Cracticini clade, which became the family Artamidae.
- Scientific name
- Cracticus mentalis
- Authority
- Salvadori & D'Albertis, 1875
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Artamidae
- Genus
- Cracticus
Range and habitat
The black-backed butcherbird is found in Cape York Peninsula north of the Palmer River, and in the Trans-Fly region and vicinity of Port Moresby in New Guinea up to altitudes of 600 m (2000 ft). The habitat is savannah and open woodland.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The black-backed butcherbird has been observed anting.<p>The black-backed butcherbird is carnivorous, preying on small lizards and birds.<p>Located in the fork of a tree, the nest is constructed of dry sticks with a finer material such as dried grass, bark and leaves forming a cup-shaped interior. The clutch consists of two to four (most commonly three) eggs blotched with brown over a base colour of various shades of pale greyish- or brownish-green, or red. Oval in shape, they are around 27 mm long by 20 mm wide (1.06 in × 0.79 in).
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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Compact songbird with short bill. Males in much of range are olive above, yellow below, with white throat set in black head; males and females on Norfolk Island are olive-brown with yellowish underparts (brightest on undertail). Females vary across range, with eastern birds having some amount of yellow on the underparts and western birds (formerly treated as full species, “Western Whistler”) being gray-brown above and pale below, lacking yellow. Olive Whistler much browner below, with well-defined whitish bib. Inhabits a great variety of habitats. Bright, whistled song varies, but often has a whip-like ending.
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Stipiturus ruficeps
Tiny buff-brown bird with enormously long, fine tail, found in arid parts of inland Australia. Crown a clean, rich brown, with streaked back, wings, and cheek; underparts buffy brown. Males have a sky-blue throat and upper breast. Tail is much longer and far more spindly than tail of fairywrens. The trick to finding this shy species is to find large unburned patches of spinifex, listening carefully for the species’ very thin, faint calls.
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