Thursday 3 November 2011

Black face gets the grub

The loud trilling call "creearc" creearc" repeated tells you the vicinity of a Black-Faced Cuckoo-shrike as they work through the foliage looking for caterpillars and insects. Very busy birds they are not in one place for very long but are easy to keep track off with their regular calling. However a lot of the time is spent in the tree tops so photo opportunities can be awhile coming around. Today I was lucky to have one spend a bit of time searching in some smaller trees and managed a couple of shots.

Looking for dinner
Found it!
  They are certainly black-faced, but not cuckoos or shrikes but a separate family with two groups, "cuckoo-shrikes" and "trillers". The Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike Coracina novaehollandiae is also often referred to as a "Wing shuffler" as a result of the bird's habit of shuffling its wings when it alights.
They range throughout Australia and migrate north as far as Indonesia and Melanesia.

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