Common in woodlands and in urban environments, it is carnivorous, eating insects and small vertebrates including birds.

The pied butcherbird engages in cooperative breeding, with a mated pair sometimes assisted by several helper birds.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed the pied butcherbird as being of least concern on account of its large range and apparently stable population.

[10] The latter subspecies has a broader (3.7 cm (1.5 in) wide) white collar and a more whitish rump, with specimens becoming smaller in the more northern parts of the range.

Although there is a demarcation in physical characters, this is not borne out genetically, and birds from northwestern Australia have affinities with the eastern subspecies.

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences indicates the pied butcherbird has expanded rapidly from many refugia during the Pleistocene.

The three form a monophyletic group within the genus, having diverged from ancestors of the grey butcherbird around five million years ago.

[13] American ornithologists Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist recognised the close relationship between woodswallows and the butcherbirds in 1985, and combined them into a Cracticini clade,[14] which became the family Artamidae in 1994.

[28] The pied butcherbird has been considered the most accomplished songbird in Australia,[25] its song described as a "magic flute" by one writer, richer and clearer than the Australian magpie.

[32] The whisper song is sung more commonly in wet or windy weather, the singer sitting in a tree warbling soft and complex harmonies for up to 45 minutes, often mimicking many other bird species as well as dogs barking, lambs bleating or even people whistling.

[32] In response to threats, pied butcherbirds may chatter or make a harmonic alarm call composed of short, loud descending notes.

[36] It is a bird of open sclerophyll forests, eucalypt and acacia woodlands and scrublands, with sparse or no understory, or low cover with shrubs such as Triodia, Lomandra or Hibbertia.

[34] It has become more common in southwest Western Australia with land clearing, though has become rare around Darwin on account of urban development.

[36] The pied butcherbird is listed as being a species of least concern by the IUCN, on account of its large range and stable population with no evidence of any significant decline.

[37] These pairs or small groups defend their territory from intruders, mobbing and chasing raptors and other birds, and occasionally dogs or people.

[38] Across most of its range, the pied butcherbird can generally be found breeding from winter to summer; eggs are laid anywhere from July to December, but mostly from September to November, and young can be present in the nest from August till February.

[33] The clutch consists of two to five (most commonly three or four) oval eggs blotched with brown over a base colour of various shades of pale greyish- or brownish-green.

[39] Larger clutches have been recorded, such as at Jandowae in Queensland, where two pairs laid eggs and were sharing incubation duties.

[41] The pied butcherbird is carnivorous, and eats insects such as beetles, bugs, ants, caterpillars, and cockroaches, as well as spiders and worms.

It preys on vertebrates up to the size of such animals as frogs, skinks, mice, and small birds such as the silvereye (Zosterops lateralis), house sparrow (Passer domesticus), double-barred finch (Taeniopygia bichenovii), willie wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys), and grey teal (Anas gracilis) duckling.

[36] Some individuals look for scraps around houses and picnic sites, and can become tame enough to be fed by people, either by hand or by tossing food in the air.

[42] The pied butcherbird also eats fruit, such as those of sandpaper figs (Ficus coronata), native cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), African boxthorn (Lycium ferocissimum) and grapes (Vitis vinifera), and nectar of the Darwin woollybutt (Eucalyptus miniata).

[42] The pied butcherbird sometimes stores food items by impaling them on a stick or on barbed wire, or shoving them in a nook or crevice.

[42] Several Australian and international composers have been inspired by and written music incorporating the songs of the pied butcherbird, including Henry Tate, David Lumsdaine (who described it as "a virtuoso of composition and improvisation"), Don Harper, Olivier Messiaen, Elaine Barkin, John Rodgers, Ron Nagorcka, and John Williamson.

[47] In the now extinct Warray language spoken on the Adelaide River in Arnhem Land, Cracticus nigrogularis was known as lopolopo.