Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
The Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike (Coracinanovae hollandiae) is a blue-grey bird with a jet black face and throat, and commonly called shufflewing from its constant habit of always shuffling and refolding its wings on alighting. It has an easy, distinctive, undulating flight alternating flapping and gliding.
This cuckoo-shrike forages in the foliage of trees, often hovering over trees or over grass, being primarily an insect eaters, but it will also eat leaves and fruit.
It is one of the most widely distributed birds in Australia, common in most types of woodland, often seen in parks and gardens but also in remote arid regions. The male and female share the nest building -- a small, shallow saucer of small sticks and bark, heavily bound with cobwebs and situated on a horizontal fork near the end of a branch and well shaded from above, as well as being difficult to see from below. Both sexes share the incubation and feeding of the young. It breeds from August to February, producing two to three eggs.
The black-faced cuckoo-shrike is rarely seen in the Urrbrae Wetland.
03/10/2010
