Alternative name: Sooty Honeyeater
- Melidectes fuscus
Identification
21-25.4 cm
- Dark brownish-black upperparts, browner on wings and tail, feathers with pale tips creating a faint mottled or scaled effect (especially in fresh plumage)
- Small pale blue eye wattle, sometimes pale yellow in the centre
- Small spot of red to orange-red bare skin behind the wattle
- Black-brown to dark brown underparts with fine pale brown to brownish-grey speckling or streaking on chin and throat merging into pale brown scaling on rest of underparts
- Pale brown, unscaled vent and undertail-coverts
- occidentalis like nominate but smaller
Females similar to males but smaller. Juveniles are duller than adults, brownish-black with little or no pale tippin on feathers of upperparts and more mottled and less scaled on underparts.
Distribution
Endemic to New Guinea.
A restricted-range species, generally scarce but locally common.
Taxonomy
Two subspecies recognized:
- M. f. occidentalis in the subalpine forests of central mountain ranges of New Guinea
- M. f. fuscus in the mountains of central and southeastern New Guinea
Habitat
Moist montanes, secondary growth and alpine shrubland.
Occurs from 2200m upwards to tree-line (at about 3700 m).
Behaviour
Diet
Feeds on insects, nectar, pollen and fruit.
Forages at all levels of the forest, often in shrubs and low trees in clearings in forest and alpine shrubs.
Usually seen singly, sometimes in pairs. Does not congregate at flowering trees like other Honeyeaters.
Breeding
Breeding reported in October, November and from April to July. The nest is a bulky, deep and thick-walled cup. It's made of moss, fine grass and lined with feathers and fine rootlets. It's placed not far from the ground in an upright fork. 1 egg recorded.
Movements
No information available.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2015. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2015, with updates to August 2015. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved May 2016)
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Sooty Melidectes. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 20 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Sooty_Melidectes
