The white-browed woodswallow is a medium-sized (~19 cm) passerine bird endemic to Australia. The white-browed woodswallow has very distinctive plumage consisting of white brow over a black head with the upper body being a deep blue-grey and with a chestnut under body. The females are paler then the males. The white-browed woodswallow has a bifurcated (divided) tongue like most woodswallows.
Region
Australia
Typical Environment
Found widely across inland and southern Australia, especially in arid and semi-arid zones. It favors open eucalypt woodlands, mallee, acacia shrublands, and pastoral lands, and readily uses roadside trees and town edges. Numbers and local presence fluctuate with rainfall, and flocks often gather around flowering trees and post-rain insect emergences. Breeding occurs mainly in the south during spring–summer, with movements northward or inland at other times.
Altitude Range
Sea level to 1200 m
Climate Zone
Arid
Ease of Keeping
Beginner friendly: 1/5
A highly mobile Australian woodswallow, it often forms large, noisy flocks that track rainfall and insect swarms across the interior. It commonly mixes with the Masked Woodswallow and may breed in loose colonies. Like other woodswallows, it has a bifurcated, brush-tipped tongue and will occasionally take nectar from flowering eucalypts.
Temperament
social and active
Flight Pattern
strong, buoyant flight with rapid wingbeats and glides
Social Behavior
Usually seen in flocks that can swell into hundreds during irruptive movements. Often associates and even breeds alongside Masked Woodswallows. Nests are shallow cups placed in forks or on horizontal limbs, with both parents incubating and feeding the young.
Migratory Pattern
Partial migrant
Song Description
Calls are soft, twittering and buzzy, used to keep contact within mobile flocks. Song is thin and tinkling, delivered from perches or in flight during social interactions.
Plumage
Glossy blue-grey upperparts with a black head and a crisp white eyebrow, contrasting with rich chestnut underparts; females are paler and duller. Wings are pointed and dark, with subtly lighter panels in some lights. Tail is dark with faint pale edging.
Diet
Primarily aerial insects such as beetles, moths, flying ants, termites, and grasshoppers, taken on the wing. It sallies out from exposed perches and also engages in sustained aerial foraging over open country. After rain, it exploits termite and ant alate swarms and may also sip nectar from flowering eucalypts.
Preferred Environment
Hunts above open woodland, shrub steppe, and farm edges, especially near flowering trees and over water where insects concentrate. Frequently forages along roadsides and around towns with scattered trees.
