This Photo by Wikkimedia Commons
The Eastern crested shrike-tit was sighted by me on a walk around Wonga Wetlands in Albury but has also been seen at the MacDonald ‘Witches Garden’ on the Watchingora /Callighans Creek Road in the Mitta Valley.
DESCRIPTION
The crested eastern shrike-tit is a distinctive medium-small bird with a black and white striped head and neck with an outlandish mohawk hairstyle, black throat and strong beak. It has striking yellow underparts with olive green back and rump. The female bird resembles the male but the throat is green and the crest smaller. They usually eat insects but will sometimes eat fruits and seeds. They’re active noisy birds when searching for insects and stripping bark. They forage in trees, rarely on or near the ground and usually in pairs or family parties. They have a high piping strong call and when flying they have short sharp flights interspersed with glides.
This Photo by JJ Harrison is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
PREFERRED HABITAT
The eastern shrike-tit is as its name suggests is found along the coast of eastern Australia in eucalypt forests, woodlands and occasionally in rainforests. It is also found in parks and gardens and on farms with scattered trees. Despite their conspicuous colors, they’re difficult to spot while feeding on insects in the tree canopy.
The crested shrike-tit are confined to mainland Australia. They are separated into 3 geographically isolated subspecies that all look rather similar.
BREEDING
The Eastern male Shrike-tit selects a nest-site in a high fork of an eucalypt tree away from predators, attracting the female to him with quivering and waving wings. The female builds the deep cone-shaped nest from dry grass and bark strips, covering the outside with spider web, moss and lichen. The male helps collect materials and both sexes incubate the eggs and feed the young. They usually lay 2 to 3 white eggs spotted dark olive and pale grey. Two broods may be raised in a season and the young birds may remain with the parents until the beginning of the next breeding season. Pallid, Brush and Fan-tailed cuckoos sometimes parasitise the nest (lay their eggs in the nest too).
This Photo by JJ Harrison is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
CONSERVATION STATUS
The Eastern crested Shrike-tit have a secure conservation status in Victoria but some bird life monitoring across the Sustainable Farms Project Area suggests their numbers are in decline due to fire and urban expansion
