Photography by Steve Solomons. Site by Weblight Studio (Australia) All Rights reserved
Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike
Black-Backed Magpie
Chestnut Teal
Crested Pigeon
Domestic Pigeon
Eastern Rosella
Figbird
Galah
Little Corella
Noisy Miners
Rainbow Lorikeets
Grey Butcher Bird
Grey Butcherbird
Cracticus Torquatus
DISTRIBUTION: Most of Australia south of the Tropic of Capricorn,
extending north along the east coast around Cairns, Qld. An isolated sub-species
C. t. argentius (Silver Backed Butcherbird) occurs in the Kimberley and the Top
End.
NOTES: Also called (in Tasmania) Derwent
Jack ass and Whistling Jackass. It's rich, rollicking notes, especially those of
autumn, are among the finest of Australia's bird-songs. Although not closely
related, it shares the true-shrike's habit of making a larder, hanging it's prey
on thorns or in small forks of trees, to be eaten at leisure. Food: insects of
various kinds, also small reptiles, birds, mice, and occassionally berries.
(Note: This bird is visiting my feeding table and taking bread almost
daily)
NEST:
Cup-shaped, made of twigs, rootlets and vine tendrils; lined with rootlets and
dead grass; built in the fork of a tree, from about two to fourteen metres or
more from the ground.
EGGS: Three to four, rarely five;
greyish-green, greyish-blue, olive, or light-brown, marked with dull
reddish-brown, purplish-red, or chesnut-brown. Breeding season: August to
January
Finally got the photograph!. This little fellow rules a territory
of several back yards in the dappled sunlight beneath a canopy of half-a-dozen
eucalypts.
A
juvenile Butcherbird looks at his first seriously large bug (A cicada,
it is the lump on the roof-tile)
He
whacked it on the roof for more ten minutes. It must have been cicada
jelly!
Eventually he felt it was dead enough to eat. As soon as the meal
was done he flew to the highest point in the area and proceeded to sing his head
off. He was obviously pleased with himself!
references from What Bird is That?
Neville W. Cayley. 1931 revised by Terence Lyndsey. 1984
...Angus and Robertson, Sydney Australia