Small black bird, bit larger than a large sparrow, small amount of brown speckling on it's wing feathers and has a very unusual call ending in a whimsical sound...hard to describe and impossible to mimic, though part of the call is easy. It makes a nest about a foot high, with a small hole in the bottom, where it enters, but very camoflaged from the side...it built it's nest in the electricity box every year. It is a very quiet bird, but knows that I won't harm it...goes out when I come to the box but comes straight back after. It lays small blue eggs.
Can you tell us where you are Tricia?
It might help to include/rule out some species.
Thanks
Cheers
Tim
Brisbane
I think the description fits Common Starling.
Yer, common starling.
Wimmera mally region, Vic.
Hi Tricia. You may or may not be aware that the Common Starling is an aggressive feral species which outcompetes with many Australian native animals, particularly those which require nesting hollows in trees. You would therefore do well to eradicate this bird from your area. First, tho’, ensure that it is, in fact, a Common Starling which is nesting in your electricity box.
The bird is not the common starling, from all the discriptions I have found of the starling....this little black bird doesn't have spots on its belly or on its eggs...is more slender than the starling, but is not a black bird, as it doesn't sing or mimic or have an orange beak...it has a call, similar to that of a wren, only it is broken, not continuous like the wren...it also has another call, but the one I hear most is the soft sound like the wren...
I live on the Darling Downs near to Warwick in Qld
Native singing starling? There more slender and sing. Although iv never seen or here’d them.
Wimmera mally region, Vic.
Maybe a common blackbird
Lol. I here’d and saw what I think was the exact same bird today. It’s call sounded like a matalic blue wren call.
deffently not a starling.
Wimmera mally region, Vic.