Peewee (male)

I refuse to call this bird a magpie-lark, because it is neither a magpie nor a lark. To me, it is a peewee, the common name used in NSW and QLD. In Victoria and WA, it's known as a mudlark. It is often confused with the Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), even though the peewee is a smaller bird. The name "peewee" comes the sound of its distinctive calls. It's around 26 to 30 cm long when fully grown, or about the same size as a European common blackbird, and boldly pied in black and white. The sexes are similar from a distance but easy to tell apart: the female has a white throat, the male a black throat and a white "eyebrow." It's mostly ground-dwelling, and is usually seen slowly searching on the ground for a variety of insects and their larvae, as well as earthworms and freshwater invertebrates. 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.