Black-faced Cuckooshrike
Coracina novaehollandiae
Large slender bird, pale gray above, paler below, with distinctive black mask and throat. Immature paler, with dark gray mask rather than black face. Dark-morph White-bellied Cuckooshrike has more extensive black in face as adult, lacks mask in light morph and as immature. Often shuffles wings after landing. Inhabits many wooded habitats with clearnings, farmland, and urban areas with trees from Indonesia to Australia. Call is a worried-sounding, rattling trill.
Identification
Adult birds have a prominent black face and throat, grey plumage, white underparts and a somewhat hooked bill. The size varies between 32 cm and 34 cm. They are slow-moving, inconspicuous birds, with a shrill, screaming call, sounding like creearck.
Taxonomy
The black-faced cuckooshrike was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus novaehollandiae. Gmelin based his description on the "New Holland thrush" that had been described in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Lathan had examined a specimen in the collection of the naturalist Joseph Banks that had come from Adventure Bay in southern Tasmania. Adventure Bay had been visited by Captain James Cook in January 1777 on his third voyage to the Pacific Ocean. A painting of the black-faced cuckooshrike by William Ellis that was made during this visit is in the collection of the Natural History Museum in London. In 1921 Gregory Mathews recognised that Gmelin's Turdus novaehollandiae and Latham's "New Holland thrush" corresponded to the black-faced cuckooshrike. It is now one of 22 species placed in the genus Coracina that was introduced in 1816 by French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot.<p>Three subspecies are recognised:<p>The Yindjibarndi people of the central and western Pilbara know the species as julgira; they would clip their wings and keep them as pets.
- Scientific name
- Coracina novaehollandiae
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1789)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Campephagidae
- Genus
- Coracina
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
Migration pattern: Complete migrants.
Conservation
Population trend: declining.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Bicolored Mouse-Warbler
Aethomyias nigrorufus
A rare, small bird of mid-montane forest understory. As the name suggests, just 2 colors. Blackish upperparts and rufous underparts. Moves in small groups, foraging for insects on the forest floor. Similar to Rusty Mouse-Warbler, but Bicolored is usually found higher and has a rufous rather than white throat. Call, an excited chattering. Song, a series of clear, whistled notes, either ascending or descending.
Sladen's Barbet
Gymnobucco sladeni
Dark, chunky barbet with an odd tuft of buff feathers on its forehead. Usually found in small groups on and around dead trees in lowland rainforest, gallery forest, and secondary growth. Sometimes occurs alongside Gray-throated Barbet. The vocalizations include nasal “squeaky toy” calls and agitated dry rattles. Gray-throated Barbet also has a dark bill, but Sladen’s Barbet is separated from that species by its largely unfeathered head.
Spot-breasted Ibis
Bostrychia rara
Small, dark, forest-dwelling ibis. Note the blue bare skin on the face and the heavily spotted breast and neck. Found in the understory of moist rainforest. Very shy and generally scarce bird. The vocalization is a honking, two-parted goose-like call. Similar to Olive Ibis, but smaller and slimmer, with heavy spotting, blue facial skin, and a different call. Somewhat like Hadada Ibis, but much smaller, and found in forest rather than more open habitats.
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