Alternative name: Small Mountain Honeyeater
- Oreornis chrysogenys
Identification
24-26 cm. A big, distinctive honeyeater.
- Dark olive to olive-grey head and neck with dark brown to blackish mottling on top
- Short narrow black streak behind eye
- Prominent orange cheek patch edged below with diffuse blackish malar area
- Dark olive to olive-grey upperparts
- Greyish-olive underparts, paler than upperparts
- Yellowish legs
Sexes similar, males larger than females. Juvenile undescribed.
Distribution
Found only in West-central New Guinea in the Snow Mountains (Indonesia).
A poorly known restricted-range species, fairly common at high altitudes in its range.
Taxonomy
This is a monotypic species.
Sometimes also placed in the genus Lichenostomus or Meliphaga.
Habitat
Found in subalpine forest and shrubland bordering alpine grassland.
Occurs at 3225 to 4000 m, mainly above 3250 m, sometimes as low as 2450 m.
Behaviour
Diet
Feeds on fruit, insects and seeds of sedges.
Forages usually in low shrubland or thickets and in wet tussock grassland-sedgeland.
Breeding
Not well known. A male in breeding condition and a nest with egg seen in August. A single nest was a basin-like cup, made of coarse moss and lichens, inner layer of grass stems and fern stems. It was placed 1.5 m above the ground in a scattered clump in alpine grassland. It contained one egg.
Movements
This is probably 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. 2016. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2016, with updates to August 2016. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved November 2016)
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Orange-cheeked Honeyeater. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Orange-cheeked_Honeyeater
