Black-faced Cuckooshrike

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Scaley Breasted Lorikeet

Black-faced Cuckooshrike

Coracina Novaehollandiae

DISTRIBUTION: Throughout Australia, including Tasmania. Also Indonesia and New Guinea; accidental to New Zealand.

NOTES: Also called Blue Jay, Summerbird (Tasmania), Cherry Hawk and Shufflewing. In pairs or small flocks, according to season; inhabits open forest-lands. It is mainly a summer migrant to Tasmania, and partly nomadic elsewhere. The flight is undulating and the wings are always shuffled and adjusted when the bird alights. The chief call is a pleasant, trilling note with a distinctive quality, often uttered while in flight. Food: Insects and their larvae, procured amongst the leaves of trees; berries are also eaten. (I am seeing this bird on power lines after flight from two mulberry bushes in front of the house.)

NEST: A small neat saucer, made of dry twigs and bark bound with cobweb; built in a horizontal fork of a tree (often a eucalypt) usually from ten to twenty metres above the ground

EGGS: Three; olive-green to pale olive-brown, spotted umber, chestnut-brown and dull grey. Breeding season: August to December

from What Bird is That? Neville W. Cayley. 1931 revised by Terence Lyndsey. 1984 p.152 ...Angus and Robertson, Sydney Australia

These birds are not regular vistors to my parts of the Central Coast and have proved to be elusive and difficult to photograph. Site is a work in progress and I will catch them eventually!