Long, pale legs reflect the black-cheeked Robin’s (Heteromyias albispecularis) ground-foraging habits. The grey-headed robin is sedentary. It is also known as Ashy-fronted Robin, Ahsy Robin, black-cheeked Robin, and black-eared Robin.
It occurs singly, in territorial pairs, or in small family groups of three or four in the Montane rainforest sub-stage in northeastern Queensland. Grey-headed Robin spends much time feeding in the shelter of the forest floor, hopping quietly along for several meters, pausing, picking up prey, and then moving on. Insects, spiders, grubs, and snails are its diet.
Like other related yellow robins, the grey-headed hunts by perch-and-pounce from low branches in the forest sub-stage, often working the edge of a track or clearing, on which it will dart to pick up food, then flutter back to its perch in cover. At times it even snatches slow-flying insects, such as termites, on its wings.
At most of his perches, it sits upright and motionless for long periods between food searches. Hunting usually continues until after dusk, to which the bird’s large eyes may be accustomed. It often clings to the sides of vertical trunks on its sorties, most of which are within a meter of the ground. Grey-headed robins measure 160–180 mm in length.
Both sexes are alike. The crown and nape are dark grey. The back and shoulders are olive-brown; the rump is tawny, shading into chestnut at the base of the tail. However, the rest of the tail is dull grey-brown. Two white wing bars; the rest of the wing is olive-brown-edged black. Lores and chin are pale; cheeks are grey-brown, darkening to black under the eye. Throat white, running back to line under the eye.
The rest of the underparts are white in color, washed grey over the breast, and tawny on the flanks and undertail. Eyes are brown-black. Bill is black with a bone-white tip. Feet are creamy flesh. Moreover, the immature are similar to adults. Juveniles are rusty brown, blotched white on the face and underparts; wing bars are present.
During contact, both sexes make a soft, repeated, short piping whistle on the same pitch. Chattering and chirping in alarm. SONG: Loud, thin whistles followed by two or three shorter notes at a lower pitch and repeated, advertising territory all month.
Nesting and breeding occur in August-January. Nests are coarse cups of thin twigs, rootlets, leaf skeletons, and fiber, covered with moss and lichen. The nest is lined with fine fiber and placed in a crotch or fork, often rattan, up to 2-3 meters above the ground.
The robin lays one or two eggs; cream buff to pale green marked with brown, particularity in the zone at the large end; rounded-oval, about 26 x 19 mm.
A grey-headed Robin can be found on mountain rainforests above 500 meters in the region of Helenvale and Mt Spec, northeastern coastal Queensland, to the head of the sea near Cape Tribulation. Also found in the mountains of New Guinea. There are five or six different races, but only one is endemic in Australia.
Read More – Pink Robin (Petroica rodinogaster)
