Eastern Whipbird (Psophodes olivaceus)
About the Eastern Whipbird
The eastern whipbird (Psophodes olivaceus) is an insectivorous passerine bird native to the east coast of Australia. Its whip-crack song is a familiar sound in forests of eastern Australia. Two subspecies are recognised. Heard much more often than seen, it is dark olive-green and black in colour with a distinctive white cheek patch and a black crest. The male and female are similar in plumage. The eastern whipbird was mistakenly described by John Latham as two separate species in 1801 from early colonial illustrations, first as the white-cheeked crow (Corvus olivaceus) and as the coachwhip flycatcher (Muscicapa crepitans). The bird became commonly known as coachwhip bird or stockwhip bird. John Gould recorded the aboriginal term Djou from the Hunter Region of New South Wales.
A real field recording of the Eastern Whipbird. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
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Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
2 recordings on this page · licensed CC BY-SA ×2 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Australia · xeno-canto lists 144 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- Black-throated WhipbirdPsophodes nigrogularisprofile
- Chiming WedgebillPsophodes occidentalisprofile
- Chirruping WedgebillPsophodes cristatusprofile
- White-bellied WhipbirdPsophodes leucogasterrecording
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.