Ground cuckoo-shrike
The ground cuckoo-shrike (Coracina maxima ) is an uncommon bird species endemic to Australia, occurring mainly in open woodland and arid grasslands throughout inland Australia, but also occasionally in areas on the east coast.
An insectivore is a carnivorous plant or animal that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which also refers to the human practice of e...
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
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NomadicNomadic animals regularly move to and from the same areas within a well-defined range. Most animals travel in groups in search of better territorie...
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Monogamy is a form of relationship in which both the male and the female has only one partner. This pair may cohabitate in an area or territory for...
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starts withThe ground cuckoo-shrike is a slender, long-legged bird, the largest of the cuckoo-shrikes measuring 33–37 cm in length, and weighing approximately 115 g. The name cuckoo-shrike, was developed not because it is affiliated with either the cuckoo bird or the shrike, but because of the similar features that it has to both these birds. The stout, hooked shrike-like beak and the plumage of the bird which is similar to that of the cuckoo, is the reason for the name cuckoo-shrike.
The adult bird possesses a pale grey head and upper body, with a black mask around pale yellow eyes. Its lower back, rump and underparts are white and finely barred with black, contrasting with the black wings and the forked black tail. This forked tail is a characteristic specific only to the ground cuckoo-shrike. The immature ground cuckoo-shrike is similar in appearance to the adult, but has fine, broken black barrings on the throat and upper parts and dark eyes with a dark eye-line, instead of a black mask with pale yellow eyes. The flight call of this bird is a distinctive ‘pee-ew, pee-ew’ or ‘chill-chill….kee-lik, keelick’. Due to the colouration of the ground cuckoo-shrike, when in flight they can look quite black and white so may be mistaken for an Australian magpie.
The distribution of the ground cuckoo-bird is widespread across Australia, mainly occurring in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territory, Australian Capital Territory and in some parts of Victoria. They occur mostly inland of the Great Dividing Range in Australia's semi-arid regions, but also occur in areas on the east coast. They have been found to occur in areas of open woodland, arid shrub-land and open grasslands that are dominated by dead trees and species such as mulga, cypress-pine and mallee-spinifex. The ground cuckoo-shrike are more likely to occur in these habitats if they are located near watercourses; floodplains, creeks and wetlands. Because of the location of the preferred habitats, ground cuckoo-shrikes are more frequently found in inland areas rather than coastal regions. Various reports have recorded seeing the ground cuckoo-shrike in their observations, showing them to be present in woodland areas located on river channels and floodplains, Mulga tall shrubland and cleared woodland regrowth areas.
Despite their large range throughout Australia, they are an uncommon species, which are thinly distributed and nomadic, which can make it hard to predict their location and where they can be expected to be seen. The current population trend of the ground cuckoo-shrike is said to be decreasing, possibly due to declines in the Murray-Mallee region since the mid 1970s. There are a few places recorded by Dolby and Clarke (2014), in their book that clearly lists and describes places where the ground cuckoo-shrike can be expected to be spotted.
The ground cuckoo-shrike, as its name suggests, mainly feeds on the ground, being adapted to this kind of feeding with their long legs and the ability to run quickly along the ground. They spend a lot of their time foraging on bare open ground in small groups for their food which consists of mainly on insects because they are insectivores. Their diet includes adult and larvae insects such as praying mantis, grasshoppers, locust, ants and spiders.
Ground cuckoo-shrikes are generally encountered in small groups of three or more. This is possibly because the young stay in the family group until the next breeding season, sometimes helping to feed the new young. They make their nests on branches or forks of trees 3 to 15 m high, with bark, grass, stems and other material, or use the old nests of magpie-larks or white-winged chough.
The breeding season is from August to November, with the birds forming monogamous pairs and laying between two and five eggs in the nest, which is sometimes shared with other females, as more than one female are known to lay eggs in the same nest during the same breeding season. The eggs are a glossy olive colour with brown/red-brown markings on them.
