A few days ago my brother and I heard this bird calling out. I haven't heard the bird call before but have only heard the bird call during the previous day this bird was sighted. I live in Tenterfield, NSW. I went outside and saw a bird fly into the gum tree across the road. It had a white underside (a bright white) and a light grey colouring on it's wings and back. It had a black head. It was the size of a noisy minor. As it called out I heard a second individual calling back to it. The second one was about 900-1500 metres away to the north in a bunch of trees somewhere at the Showgrounds.
The one I photographed appeared to be looking for a nesting site. I took this photo after eventually spotting the bird amongst the gum leaves then it chased after a Kookaburra and disappeared behind my neighbour's house. An hour later, at the most, both birds were gone from the area. Haven't heard them since. I think they both came from the north, so were probably Queensland birds.
My brother said the back of the bird, which he saw through binoculars, was like a scaled pattern of a reptile (or similiar to that of an Eastern Rosella) but the scaled pattern was squarish and was edged with black (and a darker grey?) and the lighter grey of it's wings to it.
The second image is heavily cropped of the first image and is basically all that I saw of the bird.
I bugged my brother to video record the bird call which he did but I'm not sure if he saved the video or not.
Any idea what this bird could be? I'm clueless.
All I know is it's not a Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike; it's too big to be a woodswallow; not a Pied Butcherbird; or any bird I'm used to seeing. It did sound something like a cross between a Butcherbird, a Pied Currawong and a Noisy Friarbird. It's call was uniquely different with about 5 distinctive notes which both birds repeated over and over again. Their calls did not change at all and there was no variation in their calls either.
Edit: for more information.....the trees that the bird was interested in was a big old gum tree with a wide girth and lots of dense branches and leaves. It ignored the skinner looking gum trees less than 20 feet away.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
Hi Hyperbirds, it looks like a black faced cuckoo shrike to me! But my other best guess is a masked woodswallow but look up those birds and listen to their calls, that will help.
Tegan - Melbourne Vic.
Looks like a Black-faced Cuckooshrike to me
Ryu
Canberra
Aiming for DSLR-quality shots with a bridge camera
what makes you say no to a black faced cuckoo shrike? it looks alot like one to me!!
Tegan - Melbourne Vic.
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, here is a image I Googled up.
If you look at your picture it looks like it has a flat head.
Look carefully and you realise it's the grey part on top of it's head, just like the photo I provided.
Cheers
Paul
Kippa-ring, Qld.
Thanks everyone. I guess, teganb02, that I'm just not used to seeing Black-faced Cuckoo Shrikes in the area. I've never heard them call out either, but then again I'm only used to seeing one bird of that species at any given time.
I believe you are all correct, that it is a Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike.but I just wasn't seeing it because of the angle of the bird's head. I've Googled images of this species, and came to the conclusion I didn't allow for genetic variations of the black face area. The white underside of the bird is probably just because the bird I saw was young and not fully grown yet.
So, thank you all for your comments and identifying this bird for me.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
Hyperbirds - your bird is a mature bird as indicated by the size of the face mask, a juvenile B-F CS has a smaller black face mask as my below pic
Peter