Eastern shriketit facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Eastern shriketit
Male
Female
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Falcunculidae
Genus:	Falcunculus
Species:	F. frontatus
Binomial name
Falcunculus frontatus (Latham, 1801)
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The eastern shriketit (Falcunculus frontatus) is a cool bird found in Australia. It's a type of passerine bird, which means it's a perching bird. People also call it the bark tit, crested tit, or yellow-bellied tit.

This bird lives in the southeastern parts of Australia. You can find it in places like southeastern South Australia, all over Victoria, eastern New South Wales, and southeastern Queensland. Sometimes, you might even spot them further north and west in Queensland.

About Its Name

The eastern shriketit was first described by an English bird expert named John Latham in 1801. He gave it the scientific name Lanius frontatus.

Later, another expert, John Gould, thought he found a new species. He named it Falcunculus flavigulus. But he soon realized it was just a female frontatus!

The name Falcunculus means 'little falcon'. The word frontalis comes from a Latin word meaning 'forehead'. This refers to the black band on its forehead.

What It Looks Like

The eastern shriketit is about 15 to 19 centimeters (6 to 7.5 inches) long. Its wings can spread out about 24 to 29 centimeters (9.5 to 11.5 inches). Males usually weigh between 26.5 and 40 grams, while females are a bit lighter, weighing 23 to 33 grams.

This bird has an olive-brown to olive-green back and rump. Its belly is bright yellow. The head is very striking! It has wide white patches with a thick black line over its eye. Another black band runs from its beak over the top of its head to its neck.

Males have a cool crest on their head that they can raise up. They also have a large, strong beak. This beak helps them pull up and tear bark from trees. The male's throat is black, but the female's throat is olive-brown. Young shriketits look similar to adults. However, their throat, chest, and belly are a creamy white color. Their wings are also a bit browner.

Its Calls

The eastern shriketit has a soft, sad-sounding whistle. It sounds like whiert, whit-whit, wheeir. It also makes quick, chuckling sounds, sometimes described as "knock-at-the-door." This bird is also very good at copying the calls of other birds in its area!

Similar Birds

The golden whistler is another bird that lives in the same areas and habitats. You can tell it apart from the shriketit because the golden whistler has a mostly black head. It also has a white throat with a black band across its chest. Its beak is narrower, and its yellow feathers go all the way up its neck.

Where It Lives

The eastern shriketit only lives in Australia. You can find it in the Atherton Tablelands in tropical Queensland. From there, it lives south through New South Wales and Victoria. It also lives in the Murray-Darling basin and down to the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia.

It's most common in north-central and coastal Victoria. It's also common east of the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales. In Queensland, you might find them in more scattered places.

This bird loves to live in the tops of eucalypt forests and open woodlands. It also lives in areas with mallee trees, cypress-pine, coastal tea-tree, and banksia plants. Sometimes, you can find them in trees along rivers or even in rainforests.

Eastern shriketits usually stay in one place. But sometimes, they might move around a bit locally.

How It Behaves

Finding Food

Eastern shriketits are quiet when they look for food. They usually search in pairs or small groups in the tops of trees. They use their strong beaks to lift and tear bark. Underneath the bark, they find spiders, beetles, and insect larvae to eat.

Sometimes, they even use tools! They have been seen holding a small twig in their beak. They use the twig to poke into cracks to get hidden insects.

Raising Young

The eastern shriketit's breeding season is from late August to early January. In the warmer northern areas, they often have two sets of babies. In the cooler south, they usually have one.

Their nest is shaped like a deep cup. It's made of bark fibers held together with spiderwebs. They line the inside with fine grass and lichen. They usually build their nest high up in the thin branches of a young eucalypt tree. Nests are often 5 to 30 meters (16 to 98 feet) above the ground. This helps protect the nest from animals that might try to eat the eggs or babies.

A female shriketit lays 2 or 3 eggs. The eggs are whitish with brown or gray spots. They are about 24 by 15 millimeters (0.9 by 0.6 inches) in size. The female mostly sits on the eggs to keep them warm for 15 or 16 days. When the babies hatch, they are helpless and stay in the nest. They leave the nest after 14 to 17 days. Both parents, but mostly the female, take care of the young for 3 to 6 months after they leave the nest.

Safety and Threats

Some other birds, like the pallid cuckoo, fan-tailed cuckoo, and brush cuckoo, are "brood parasites." This means they lay their eggs in the shriketit's nest. The shriketit then raises the cuckoo's babies as if they were its own.

Wild and pet cats can sometimes attack shriketit nests. Other dangers include wildfires and losing their habitat. This happens when woodlands are destroyed for human activities like building cities or cutting down trees.

Even though the eastern shriketit is not very common and its numbers are decreasing, it lives in many different places. Because of this, the IUCN (a group that studies nature) says it is a species of least concern. This means it's not currently in danger of disappearing.

See also

In Spanish: Silbador cabezón oriental para niños