These are found throughout the Australian mainland with the exception of most of the southern and south-eastern coastline, the more arid areas of the inland and Tasmania.
They live in drier woodlands and forests, scrublands, pastoral lands with trees and are common in suburban parks and around houses. They are among our most melodious birds and in the morning are often heard singing from a prominent perch.
Their diet consists of small reptiles, mammals, frogs and birds, as well as large insects; most of these are caught on the ground.  Because their feet are too small to hold down prey while tearing it up they wedge the catch into a fork or on a thorn and tear it apart with their hooked bill, this action has earned them the name Butcherbird.
Males and females are similar but juvenile birds are brown and white. The nest is a bowl of sticks and twigs lined with grasses and other finer material and usually built in an upright tree fork. The female constructs the nest and incubates the eggs alone but is fed by the male and other members of the group, more than one female may lay eggs in the same nest.