Pied butcherbird

fWotD Episode 3254: Pied butcherbird Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Thursday, 2 April 2026, is Pied butcherbird.The pied butcherbird (Cracticus nigrogularis) is a songbird native to Australia. Initially described by John Gould in 1837, it is a black-and-white bird 28 to 32 cm (11 to 12.5 in) long with a long, hooked bill. Its head and throat are black, making a distinctive hood; the mantle and much of the tail and wings are also black. The neck, underparts, and outer wing feathers are white. The juvenile and immature birds are predominantly brown and white. As they mature, black feathers replace their brown feathers. There are two recognised subspecies of pied butcherbird.Within its range, the pied butcherbird is generally sedentary. Common in woodlands and urban environments, it is carnivorous, eating insects and small vertebrates, including birds. A tame and inquisitive bird, the pied butcherbird has been known to accept food from humans. It nests in trees, constructing a cup-shaped structure out of sticks and laying two to five eggs. The pied butcherbird engages in cooperative breeding, with a mated pair sometimes assisted by several helper birds. The troop is territorial, defending the nesting site from intruders. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed the pied butcherbird as being of least concern on account of its large range and apparently stable population.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:58 UTC on Thursday, 2 April 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Pied butcherbird on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Matthew.