Other Names (World)
Grey-crowned Babbler, Gray-crowned Babbler, Cackler, Chatterer, Australian Babbler, Common Babbler, Red-breasted Babbler, Rufous-breasted Babbler, Happy Family, Happy Jack, Red-breasted Babbler, Apostlebird, Babbler, Barker, Catbird, Codlin Moth-eater, Cur-cur, Twelve Apostles, Dogbird, Fussy, Grey-crowned Chatterer, Gray-crowned Chatterer, Hopper, Parson Bird, Pine Bird, Rufous-breasted Chatterer, Temporal Babbler, Hopper, Hopping Dick, Jumper, Long Neb, Parsonbird, Pinebird, Pine Hopper, Quachie, Yahoo
Family
Pomatostomidae (Australasian Babblers)
Size
23 - 27 cm
First Described (Guide)
(Vigors & Horsfield, 1827)
Derivation
Pö'-mat-o-stom'-us - Gk, poma (pomatos), lid; Gk, stoma, mouth: tem-por-ä'-lis - L., (marked) on the temple
Habitat
Mainly open forests and savanna woodlands with a grassy groundcover, open eucalypt forest and woodland. Usually noisy, active groups of from four to twelve.
Voice
A soft, mellow, 'tchuk' uttered in contact. Breeding adults give a low-high duet, the female a nasal 'awark' with the male adding a high, clear, 'tiew', with other members of the group joining in. Cacophonous calls, yet mellow, like distant yapping of many small dogs. Also a nasal, 'chippa-wah, chippa-wah'.
Grey-crowned Babbler (Pomatostomus) [XC477491]
by James Lambert from Gilgai Wetland, Pilliga, New South Wales, Australia (song)
Grey-crowned Babbler (Pomatostomus temporalis) [XC688692]
by Drew Davison from Bimbi, New South Wales, Australia (song)
Nest
Bulky, dome-shaped, with a spout-like entrance, composed of sticks and twigs, loosley interwoven, lined with bark-fiber, feathers, grass or wool, usually placed in the fork of a tree up to 7 or 8 m above the ground. Roost-nests are also built and house several birds at once.
Eggs (Guide)
Usually 2 - 3, but can be up to 14 when several families are sharing the same nest; glossy, pale brown, covered with fine hair-lines of dark brown; oval ; about 28 x 20 mm. Incubation: 18 - 23 days; by female.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fledge in about 17 - 23 days.
Subspecies
A dozen subspecies sometimes recognized; described subspecies considered untenable are strepitans (lowland southern New Guinea from Princess Marianne Strait east to R Oriomo) and, in Australia, nigrescens (Western Australia from Pilbara area south to upper R Murchison and Wiluna), intermedius (from Kimberley, in Western Australia, east to arid interior Queensland and northern South Australia), bamba (Melville I, off north-western Northern Territory), brownei (Cape Arnhem Peninsula, in northern Northern Territory), mountfordae (Groote Eylandt), cornwalli (coastal north-eastern Queensland south to Cairns), trivirgatus (coasts of southern Queensland and New South Wales), tregellasi (south-eastern South Australia east to south-eastern New South Wales).
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
temporalis (Vigors & Horsfield, 1827) - Eastern Australia from Cape York Peninsula to north-eastern New South Wales, then south and west through central-eastern New South Wales, central and western Vic., to south-eastern SA, from inland slopes of the Great Divide, west to the drainages of central Murray - Darling, Bulloo and Upper Thomson - Barcoo Rivers, and also the Trans-Fly Region of southern-central New Guinea. Pomatostomus temporalis temporalis
rubeculus (Gould, 1840) - Central-western, north-western and northern Australia from around Lake Way, through Pilbara and Kimberley Divide in WA, to Arnhem Land and southern Gulf of Carpentaria Drainage in NT, to Selwyn Ranges, Qld, extending south to about 23° southern though extending farther south through centralian ranges to north-western SA.
strepitans (Mayr & Rand, 1935) - Southern New Guinea (Orimo River to Digul River).
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