other names
Micky, Squeaky, Soldier-Bird or Noisy Mynah

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DESCRIPTION

Sexes are similar in appearance. 250 to 290mm in length. Black crown, extending down over ears to sides of throat and chin. Neck and rump mid-grey, mottled dusky and flecked white on nape. Under-parts are white, mottled grey on throat and breast. Wings mid-grey, tail dark grey, broadly tipped with white. Forehead white. Eye is brown with patch of bare yellow skin behind. Bill is yellow. Feet are brown to orange-yellow.

Juvenile: As adults with light brown on back, rump and wing coverts.

Voice: A complex repertoire. The territorial call is a rhythmic, repeated two or three syllable teu-teu-teu uttered in short, undulating flight. Females may mutter four or five throaty, chuckling notes in sequence with a pitch of the last note rising. Nasal whistled chatter to ground predators, pure whistle to flying predators. Soft twitters and whistled squeaking in social and feeding groups. Before sunrise and onset of nesting, pure whistle and notes in chorus.

The Noisy Miner is probably Australia's most widely known honey eater. It can be found throughout eastern mainland, north to the Atherton Tablelands, Queensland and south west to Mt Lofty Ranges and Adelaide in South Australia. There is a second race in Tasmania. It is a sedentary bird occupying the same territory year around. The Noisy Miner is a communal bird and the social organisation of communes is complex. There can be a number of groups within an area with five to thirty birds in a normal group but reaching one hundred individuals in some colonies. There are more males than females in a colony. The Noisy Miner is an aggressive bird, mobbing together to gang up on predators like goanna's, but they are also known to frighten off other Australian native birds from their territory, occasionally killing some. Although the miner is a honey eater it also eats insects and other invertebrates. They also eat fruit. In urban areas they will also eat human scraps such as bread. Breeding is mainly from June to December, but can occur at any time of the year. The female miner builds the nest alone, which is a cup made of twigs, grasses and leaves bound with spider web and cocoon's and it is often quite flimsy. Two to four eggs are laid which are incubated by the female for fifteen to sixteen days. Young fledge in approximately sixteen days.