Food
Insects, procured among leaves and blossoms and on the ground. Also pollen, native fruits and berries.
Voice
Varied. Some calls clear, mellow, quite musical 'chwip-chwip, chwip-chwip', but other loud, raucous, complaining, noisy when others of the flock join in, 'kairk-kairk-kairk' and a harsher 'karrk-karrk-karrk'. A 'tiew-tiew-tiew' territorial call is quite musical and often uttered in flight.
Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) [XC587000]
by James Lambert from Aspley, Brisbane City, Queensland, Australia (call)
Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) [XC772857]
by custard from Kooloonbung Creek, Port Macquarie, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, New South Wales, Australia (alarm call)
Nest
Cup-shaped, composed of twigs, strips of bark and grass, frequently decorated on the outside with wool, lined with fine grass and hair, placed in a bush or tree, up to 7 - 8 m above the ground.
Eggs (Guide)
2 - 4, rarely 5; cream-white, spotted heavily with red-brown, mostly at the larger end; oval; 27 x 18 mm. Incubation: 15 - 16 days; by female.
Two additional subspecies recently proposed are titaniota (described from 47 km west of Fairview Station, in Cape York Peninsula) and lepidota (from 17 km west of Nyngan, in New South Wales), but much further study required in order to determine validity of these.
The following 4 subspecies are recognised:
melanocephala (Latham, 1801) - Mainland eastern Australia from the eastern foot of Cape York Peninsula, south and south-west through eastern and south-eastern Australia to Mt Lofty Ranges - Adelaide Plains, SA and inland to the Murray - Darling Basin as far as Darling - Warrego Rivers.
leachi (Mathews, 1912) - Northern and eastern Tasmania.
titaniota Schodde & Mason, IJ, 1999 - North-eastern Queensland (interior of southern Cape York Peninsula).
lepidota Schodde & Mason, 1999 - Eastern Australia (Burdekin R., Queensland to south-western New South Wales).
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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