Magpie Flycatcher
Female Building a Mud Nest
Ellura
Restless Flycatcher
Nest
 
                      
Magpie Flycatcher (Grallina cyanoleuca)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Chordates (Chordata) - Birds (Aves)
Order: Perching Birds (Passeriformes)
Family: Monarch Flycatcher (Monarchidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Magpie Flycatcher (Grallina cyanoleuca)
This Photo:     🔍Male🔎
Other names: Magpie-lark, Mudlark, Murray Magpie or Peewee

Thank you Dezmond Wells for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
The genders are easy to differential. The males have a horizontal line through the eye, the females have a vertical line through the eye.
Kudos to Bruce Blackwell for the common name. They aren't Magpies and can be found in many areas of SA, away from the river. They aren't larks, or closely related to the Australian Magpie (even if they have a superficially similar appearance). They are a Flycatcher (surprisingly) and so the common name should reflect that.
The common name Mudlark might come from the fact they make mud nests.

Copyright © 2015-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 08-Apr-2015
This species is classed as LC (Least Concern) in the Murray Mallee, SA, by DENR (Regional Species Status Assessments, July 2010)