Habits
Usually singly or in pairs, and after breeding in small family parties.
Food
Inveetebrates, mainly insects, and vertebrates, including frogs, small lizards, bird eggs, young and adult birds and small mammals. Also plant material, including fruits and seeds.
Voice
A ringing, 'purr-purr, quee yule', 'pip-pip-pip-ho-ee', 'ee-all, ee-all, queel'. In winter a ringing 'dite', 'yorrick' or 'ching'.
Nest
Large, cup-shaped, composed of strips of bark, wiry roots and grass, lined with fine rootlets and grass, built in hollows in stumps and broken-off branches, in upright forks of trees, sometimes in garden shrubs and crevices of buildings. Also occasionally in eroded banks of creeks or old mine shafts and caves, or in an old nest of a Magpie-lark (Grallina cyanoleuca), also on the ground at the base of a tree.
Eggs (Guide)
3, occasionally 4; white or cream, sprsely but clearly blotched and spotted with dark olive-brown and grey; oval; about 28 x 20 mm. Incubation: 16 - 18 days; by both sexes.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fledge in about 13 - 18 days. Fed by both parents.
Subspecies
Subspecies have sometimes been divided into three species: one in New Guinea and northern Australia (superciliosa and brunnea), one in west, central and south-central Australia (rufiventris), and a third in eastern Australia and Tasmania (nominate and strigata). Considerable geographical variation, and up to 13 local forms sometimes distinguished, but subspecies intergrade widely. New Guinea population often separated as tachycrypta. Differs somewhat from birds in north-eastern Australia (Cape York, in northern Queensland), but not sufficiently to warrant subspecific recognition.
Other named subspecies, all in Australia, are parryi (Kimberly District of Western Australia), roebucki (Roebuck Bay, in Western Australia) and julietae (interior north-western Australia), all merged with brunnea; pallescens (eastern Queensland), anda (north-eastern South Australia) and halmaturina (south-eastern South Australia and adjacent New South Wales and Victoria), all merged with nominate; whitei (interior South Australia), synonymized with rufiventris; and kingi (King I, in Bass Strait), merged with strigata.
The following 6 subspecies are recognised:
harmonica (Latham, 1801) - Eastern and south-eastern Australia from Atherton Tableland and Gregory Range, Qld, south and south-west to coastal Vic., and south-eastern SA, including Kangaroo Island, extending west to Yorke Peninsula and Mt Lofty - southern Flinders Ranges and lower Lake Eyre Basin.
strigata Swainson, 1838 - Tasmania and islands of Bass Strait.
rufiventris Gould, 1841 - Southern and central Australia, extending from Eyre Peninsula and Flinders Ranges, SA west to southern and western coastal WA, and north to Pilbara region, WA, and Davenport Range, and western fringes of Simpson Desert, NT and lower Lake Eyre Basin, SA.
brunnea Gould, 1841 - Central-northern Australia from Kimberley Divide, northern WA east to south-eastern Gulf of carpentaria, north-western Qld, extending south to northern fringe of Great Sandy Desert, WA, northern Barlky Tableland and Victoria River Drainage, NT and Selwyn Range, Qld.
superciliosa Masters, 1876 - Northern Cape York Peninsula, Qld, south to Archer River in the west and western Pricess Charlotte Bay in the east, and lowland New Guinea.
tachycrypta Rothschild & Hartert, 1915 - Coastal south-eastern New Guinea.
Similar Species
Female whistlers, especially Gilbert's Whistler (Pachycephala inornata) which has a shorterbill and lacks pale lores.
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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