

Profile

In flight
Songbirds
Pied Butcherbird
Cracticus nigrogularis
- uncommon
- 45 km/h
- Least Concern
Impales lizards on barbed wire like a serial fencer. Its liquid, flute-like song fills the outback at dawn.
- Population
- Not precisely quantified by BirdLife/IUCN in accessible sources; qualitatively described as having a large range with a stable population and no evidence of significant decline (consistent with widespread/locally common status across mainland Australia)
- Habitat
- Open sclerophyll forests, eucalypt and acacia woodlands, and scrublands with sparse or no understory; in arid northern parts of its range restricted to woodland along rivers and billabongs; less common in mallee scrub.
- Fun fact
- The Pied Butcherbird is renowned as one of Australia's most accomplished songbirds, producing complex, flute-like improvised melodies and mimicking other birds, dogs, and even human whistling.
- Range
- Endemic to Australia, occurring across most of the mainland (Queensland, Northern Territory, all of Western Australia except the Great Sandy Desert, South Australia, and northward Victoria along the Murray Valley); absent from Tasmania and from the far south-east (Sydney Basin, Illawarra, Southern Tablelands, and NSW south coast).
- Diet
- Carnivorous generalist: insects (beetles, bugs, ants, caterpillars, cockroaches), spiders and worms, plus small vertebrates such as frogs, skinks, mice and small birds; also takes fruit and nectar from native plants.
- Size
- 0.31 m
- Wingspan
- 0.51 m
- Lifespan
- 22 years











