This animal is: real
Go-away-birds are found in Africa. There are three kinds: Gray, White-bellied, and Bare-faced. They are very vocal, and their call sounds like “Go away!” hence their anti-social name.
Bare-faced Go-away-birds like to live in moist savanna and woodland, and can also be found in shrubby cultivated areas and gardens. They live in small groups, and feed on plant matter, like fruit, seeds and buds. They are 48 cm long beak to tail. They often build their nests in tall acacia trees, where they lay two to three greenish-white eggs.
The species has recently been subject to a lot of taxonomic shuffling, which I shall attempt to summarise simply (if taxonomy-themed bafflement is not your thing, skip the next couple of paragraphs!).
Formerly, the Bare-faced Go-away-bird had the Latin name of Corythaixoides personatus, which contained two subspecies: C. p. leopoldi with a bare face, found in a large swathe of Africa; and C. p. personatus, which has tiny brown feathers on its face and more green on its chest, found only in the Ethiopian Rift Valley.
Now those subspecies are recognised as species in their own right: the Black-faced Go-away-bird Corythaixoides leopoldi, and the Brown-faced Go-away-bird Corythaixoides personatus.
According to Wikipedia, all the Go-away-birds have now been moved to the genus Crinifer in 2021, where they now sit with the plantain-eaters, so the first parts of their names should be Crinifer rather than Corythaixoides.
However, many sites (iNaturalist, eBird and UCN Red List) call them Corythaixoides, so that might be correct.
Who knows! I quit, working it out is hard!
I have drawn a Black-faced Go-away-bird (the leopoldi kind).
I am no expert, and I got very, very confused with this, so please, if you know the correct Latin name for the bird I drew, leave it in the comments!
Both the Brown-faced and Black-faced Go-away-birds appear to be classed as ‘least concern’, which means they are not endangered currently.
External links:
Bare-faced Go-away-bird on:
Black-faced Go-away bird and Brown-faced Go-away bird on UCN red list’s site.
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