Brown-backed Honeyeater
Ramsayornis modestus· 吸蜜鸟科(3 photos)
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Brown-backed Honeyeater
11-13 cm. Note pinkish brown bill and legs; olive-brown above and on ear-coverts; throat/underparts white, with sparse brownish scallops. Thin white line from bill under eye, above a thinner dark brown streak. Immature: gape-streak washed yellow; breast streaked brown; rump rufous. Pairs, small colonies: lively; with other honeyeaters at blossom.
- Similar Species
- Bar-breasted; imm. Rufous-banded, Rufous-throated Honeyeaters.
- Voice
- fussy, chattering 'shee-shee-shee'; sharper 'chit' rapidly repeated. Flight-call: 'mick-mick-mick'.
- Habitat
- paperbark woodlands, waterside thickets, blossoming eucalypt woodlands, mangroves; ventures far from cover; perches dead trees.
- Breeding
- Oct.-March.
- Nest
- domed, hanging, of paperbark strips, spiders' web, egg-sacs; suspended from branchlets, 1-16 m high, near or over water, in loose colony in paperbarks, eucalypts, mangroves.
- Eggs
- 2; white, dotted purplish black. Parasitised by Brush Cuckoo.
- Range & Status
- coastal ne. Q and islands: from C. York (Q), s. on w. coast to Archer R.; on e. coast s. to c. Bowen; inland to Coen-Atherton Tableland. Common; patchier in higher, drier parts of range. Migratory, or seasonally nomadic. Also Torres Strait Is., PNG.
