Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes are not cuckoos and raise their own chicks and build nests within tall dense shrubs and tree canopies. These birds prefer to live in areas with large trees and nest in eucalypts, paperbarks, and peppermint trees.
Keep and maintain mature trees in your garden as they provide nesting habitat for native birds.
Birds build their nests with materials collected around the garden including twigs, bark, grass, cobwebs, fabrics, and even pet fur. Clumping grasses, leaflitter, and groundcovers in the garden can provide natural nesting materials for nesting birds as well.
Novel Shelter
Not required.
Habitat Guide - Food and Water
Providing natural sources of food
Resident Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes enjoy diversity in the garden. Planting shrubs, trees, clumping grasses, and groundcovers attract insects to the garden and can provide foraging habitat for Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes.
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes eat fruits, nectar, and seeds from native plants including dianella, hakea, and clumping grasses.
Providing sources of water
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes prefer to live reasonably close to water. Bird bathes located in the forks of trees or hanging from branches are safe spaces for birds to drink and bathe.
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes visit frog ponds regularly for food and water.
ReWild Benefits
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes help to control pest species (bushflies, marchflies, etc) within the ecosystem. Visit BirdLife Australia to learn more about our native birds. If you have seen one in your neighbourhood or around the home you can record your sighting on Birdata and help scientists monitor their population.
