Magpie-lark

The magpie-lark (Grallina cyanoleuca) is a conspicuous Australian bird of small to medium size, also known as the mudlark in Victoria and Western Australia, the Murray magpie in South Australia, and as the peewee in New South Wales and Queensland. It had been relegated to a subfamily of fantails in the family Dicruridae (drongos), but has been placed in a new family of Monarchidae (monarch flycatchers) since 2008.

It is a common and very widespread bird both in urban and rural areas, occupying all parts of Australia except for Tasmania and some of the inland desert in the far north-west of Western Australia, and appears to have adapted well to the presence of humans. It is also found in southern New Guinea.

Taxonomy

The magpie-lark was originally described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801 and given the binomial name Corvus cyanoleucus. Like many Australian birds, the English name was based on its apparent similarity to the northern Hemisphere birds familiar to European settlers. In fact, it is a magpie not a lark and is not particularly closely related to either—though its actual relationship to other birds remains uncertain: it was traditionally placed somewhere in-between the mud nest builders and the currawong family (both of which look rather similar) but, in the light of modern DNA studies, is now grouped with the monarch flycatchers.