Black-faced Woodswallow

About the Black-faced Woodswallow

The black-faced woodswallow (Artamus cinereus) is a woodswallow of the genus Artamus native to Australia, New Guinea, and the Sunda Islands, including Timor. It is 18–19 cm (7.1–7.5 in) long and is the most widespread species in the family Artamidae. Woodswallows have a soft call with chiff, chap and chattering calls which can include vocal mimicry

Increased vegetation due to inappropriate fire regimes has caused the woodswallows numbers to decline since 1993 in the Cape York Peninsula. The black-faced woodswallow was formally described in 1817 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot and given the current binomial name Artamus cinereus. The specific epithet is Latin meaning "ash-grey" or "ash-coloured". Although Vieillot gave the locality as the island of Timor, he had copied the description by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck of the "L'angroyan gris" from "la nouvelle Galle meridionale" (New South Wales) that had been published in 1807. Temminck mentioned that the central tail feathers were entirely black which is consistent with Australian race and but not with the race found on Timor where the central tail feathers have white tips. Temminck's specimen... Wikipedia →