Nominate subspecies melanops common, nomadic, cassidix rare and endangered.
Habitat
Mainly open dry sclerophyll forest and woodland, usually dominated by eucalypts, with a well developed understorey, and often near water, in loose colonies.
Nest
Cup-shaped, composed of strips of bark and grasses, lined with hair or plant-down, usually suspended from a branch of a bush or low shrub, but sometimes placed in the fork of a tree, or on a protruding piece of bark.
Eggs (Guide)
2, rarely 3; smooth, dull flesh-buff to white, spotted and blotched with chestnut, purple-red and purple-grey, in a zone, mainly at the larger end; oval; about 23 x 16 mm. Incubation: about 14 days.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fledge in about 13 days.
Subspecies
Subspecies cassidix and melanops integrade in east to NSW border region.
The following 4 subspecies are recognised:
melanops (Latham, 1801) - Coastal New South Wales east of the Great Diving Range, from the Qld border region south to the Victorian border region.
meltoni (Mathews, 1912) - Western watershed of Great Divide, narrowly extending to eastern watershed of south-eastern Queensland, south to north-eastern and Cnorthern Victoria, thence west to border region near South Australia, with outlying populations at high altitude in Snowy R watershed and Mt Kosciusko region (south-eastern New South Wales).
cassidix (Gould, 1867) - Yellingbo, western Gippsland, Vic. Along the New South Wales border region.
gippslandicus (Wakefield, 1958) - Eastern Victoria (western Gippsland) east to extreme south-eastern New South Wales (Narooma and Eden).
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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BirdLife International Species Factsheet