Habits
Usually solitary or in twos, sometimes associating with Tooth-billed Bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris).
Food
Insects. Also frogs.
Voice
A quiet, mellow, high, rising 'sheee', followed by a lower 'wot, wot, wot, wot'. Also a loud 'chuck'. Honeyeater-like clicking chirps. Harsh gratings uttered in alarm.
Bower's Shrikethrush (Colluricincla boweri) [XC353283]
by Marc Anderson from Mt Lewis, Atherton Tableland, Qld, Australia (song)
Bower's Shrikethrush (Colluricincla boweri) [XC175609]
by Marc Anderson from Crater Lakes National Park (near Lake Eacham), Queensland, Australia (call)
Nest
Cup-shaped, composed of dead leaves, bark and plant-stems, lined with fine rootlets, placed in a dense mass of foliage or lawyer vines up to 10 m above the ground.
Eggs (Guide)
2; smooth, lustrous, pearly off-white, freckled with pale brown, red-brown and grey, often forming a zone at the larger end; swollen-oval to long-oval; about 25 x 19 mm.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fed by both parents.
Subspecies
No subspecies.
Similar Species
Little Shrike-thrush (Colluricincla megarhyncha) which has a generally slender appearance, and proportionally longer tail, is paler and usually more olive-brown top and sides of head and upperparts, dull and pale rufous lores and eyering and a pinkish to pinkish-grey bill.
Compare Images
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