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General Information
Description: Fig
Birds are also called Orioles. The
male Fig Bird has a black head with a bright orange or red patch around his eye. Their wings are dusky green
and they have a white chest. The chin to breast is grey. The female is
olive-brown on their upper body with dark patches and their faces have a
purple-grey patch. Under their body is
whitish but streaked with dark brown.
They grow
to
about 27-30cm.
Voice:
Fig Birds are noisy and chattering, and are often found with other fruit
eaters.
Habitat:
Fig Birds are colonial and live
in small groups through the
breeding months. They inhabit the edges of
rainforest, eucalyptus forest and woodlands, mangroves, watercourses, parks,
gardens and orchards.
Food:
About 6 subspecies of Fig Birds
leave a mess on all the teachers' cars in our car
park as they eat the berries from our Fig Trees. They also like all types
of fruit, as well as figs, native berries and cultivated fruit such as bananas and pawpaws.
They also eat chillies.
Breeding: Fig Birds
breed from
October to February, and
lay 2-3 eggs each. Both parents care for young. When they not breeding, they
move around in flocks of mostly immature birds, looking for food in tree
foliage. The Fig Bird makes a suspended hammock-like nest of vines and twigs
in a horizontal fork near the end of a branch from 6-12m off the
ground.
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Female Fig Bird eating
seeds from a palm tree. (Click for larger picture) |
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Male Fig Bird eating
seeds from a palm tree. |
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Reference: Information -
Cooloola Coast Care and Child's project.
Photos
- © G.
Crew
Some information and pictures were taken from children's charts and
where credited to that child does not claim to be original information.
Where possible, permission to reproduce has been sought and ownership
credited. Any infringement of copyright is purely unintentional and
ownership of pictures and information used is freely acknowledged.
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