Adults: Uniformly soft, fluffy sooty black except for concealed white patch through outer flight feathers. Eye, red, with orange inner ring in birds over 4 years old. Bill, black, downcurved and thin. Feet, black.
Immatures: Until 8 or 9 weeks old have two lines of buff down above eye. Eye, brown in first year birds.
Other Names (World)
White-winged Chough, Black Jay, Black Magpie, Jay, Apostlebird
Food
Insects, spiders, snail and grain. They are ground feeders and feed in groups, walking along in spread-out formation, methodically probing.
Voice
Single and double descending piping whistles in contact and alarm. Ear shattering scream in extreme alarm. Small throaty clicks among feeding goups.
White-winged Chough (Corcorax melanorhamphos) [XC407793]
by Khristos Nizamis from Monarto South, South Australia, Australia (call)
White-winged Chough (Corcorax melanorhamphos) [XC580344]
by Marc Anderson from Monarto Woodlands, The Rural City of Murray Bridge, South Australia, Australia (alarm call)
Nest
Large bowl shaped, made of mud reinforced with grass and lined with strips of bark-fibre, wool, etc., built on a horizontal branch of a tree, about 8 - 20 m from the ground. They occasionally use an old stick nest of another species.
Eggs (Guide)
3 - 5, up to 10 if two females contribute; cream, sparingly blotched brown, black and grey; oval; about 40 x 30 mm. Incubation: about 19 days; by group.
Young
Fledge in about 25 days.
Subspecies
Subspecies intergrade in south-eastern South Australia (in and just east of Mt Lofty Ranges). Proposed subspecies subniger (from Ringwood, in Victoria) synonymized with nominate.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
melanorhamphos (Vieillot, 1817) - Eastern Australia from eastern half of Queensland (south from region of Clarke Range) south to New South Wales (except north-western), Victoria (mainly north of Great Dividing Range) and south-eastern South Australia (Mt Lofty Ranges.
whiteae Mathews, 1912 - Southern and south-eastern South Australia (Eyre Peninsula and Mt Lofty Ranges).
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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