Grey-headed Robin
Heteromyias cinereifrons· 鸲鹟科(3 photos)
Photographed In:
Grey-headed Robin
16-18 cm. Large-headed, short-tailed, upstanding, robust robin; note black bill with pale tip, long pinkish flesh legs. Slight dark mark around eye separated by white mark down through eye to white throat. Upperparts deep olive-brown with rufous rump; bold Z-shaped white mark on black wing; breast grey; flanks and underparts buff to olive-buff. Singles, pairs, family parties: unobtrusive; feeds much on ground in leaf litter; hops briskly upright. Perches motionless, often sideways, on trunk or vine; darts to ground with strange jerking of short tail. In flight, shows black-and-white wing flash and rufous-yellow rump. Sometimes flies high into canopy.
- Similar Species
- White-browed Robin: browner above, paler below; white eyebrow and tail tips.
- Voice
- characteristic sound of ne. Q mountain rainforests: persistent, leisurely, ringing 'pee, pee, pee', or 'bink, bink, bink, bink, brr' with an irregular break, resuming on one level, like Crested Bellbird; heard all months. Also scrubwren-like chattering, chirping.
- Habitat
- mostly highland rainforests and margins of tracks, roads, lawns in rainforest parks; but to near sea level where habitat runs unbroken down from highlands.
- Breeding
- Aug.-Jan.
- Nest
- flattish untidy cup of rootlets, twigs, lawyer-vine fibre and leaves, decorated with lichen and green moss; in lawyer vine, at base of leaf in small palm, fork of slender sapling, 1-2 m high.
- Eggs
- 1 or 2; cream, brownish, pale green, freckled and blotched dark brown and purplish grey, especially at large end.
- Range & Status
- ne. Q: coastal highlands (and some lowlands) from near Cooktown to Mt Spec, near Townsville. Common. Sedentary. Also PNG.
