Alternative names: High-mountain Mouse-Warbler; White-throated Mouse-Warbler; Mountain Mouse-Babbler
- Crateroscelis robusta
Identification
12 cm. A small, short-tailed skulking bird of the undergrowth at high altitude.
- Dark brown upperparts (including tail and upperwing) with rufous wash on uppertail-coverts
- White chin and throat
- Grey-brown or dark brown broad breastband and flanks
- Greyish-white belly
- deficiens with deeper brown upperparts, less rufous uppertail-coverts and greyish underparts without slaty breastband
- peninsularis like deficiens but with more white on breast
- ripleyi like peninsularis but more greyish-toned and less rufous-brown above
- sanfordi slightly larger, more rich brown to olive-brown upperparts and dull rufous-brown underparts (like a dull Rusty Mouse-Warbler)
- bastille like sanfordi but with dark olive upperparts and slightly paler underparts
Sexes similar, female sometimes duller. Juveniles can have reddish-brown or grey-brown underparts.
Distribution
Endemic to the mountains of New Guinea.
Common and widespread.
Taxonomy
Clements[1] recognizes seven subspecies:
- C. r. peninsularis in northwest New Guinea (Arfak Mountains)
- C. r. diamondi in northern New Guinea (Foja Mountains)
- C. r. ripleyi in northwest New Guinea (Tamrau Mountains)
- C. r. bastille in coastal north New Guinea (Bewani and Toricelli mountains)
- C. r. deficiens in northern New Guinea (Cyclops Mountains)
- C. r. sanfordi in Weyland and Jayawijaya mountains, New Guinea
- C. r. robusta in southeast New Guinea (Herzog and Owen Stanley mountains)
HBW[3] doesn't recognize diamondy yet, Gill and Donsker[2] recognize an additional subspecies, pratti from Mount Dayman (southeast New Guinea).
Habitat
Moist montanes with dense shrubby understorey. Also in coarse kunai grass at forest edge.
Occurs from 1250 to 3680 m. Replaced at lower altitudes by Rusty Mouse-Warbler and overlaps with it and Bicolored Mouse-Warbler in a few areas.
Behaviour
Diet
Feeds on insects.
Usually seen foraging on the ground or low in vegetation singly or in pairs, sometimes in small groups of up to 4 birds. Creeps quietly through vegetation and can easily be overlooked, heard far more often than seen.
Breeding
Poorly known. Nestlings recorded in December, fledglings in August. The nest is a dome lined with feathers. It's placed under tree roots, under small cliff, in a tree fork or a landslip area.
Movements
This is a sedentary species.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2014. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: Version 6.9., with updates to August 2014. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Gill, F and D Donsker (Eds). 2015. IOC World Bird Names (version 5.2). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.
- Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved July 2015)
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Mountain Mouse-Warbler. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Mountain_Mouse-Warbler
