Sluggish pale grey FC with rufous underparts. Has black forehead and lores, narrow blackish eyering, crown and upperparts pale grey, bend of wing and alula feathers blackish, flight –feather blackish, broadly edged pale grey on outer webs, tail grey, chin and throat black, upper breast pale grey, rest of underparts and UW-C orange rufous, iris dark, bill steel-blue to blue-grey, legs grey and lead-grey. Sexes alike . Juvenile is similar to adult, but lacks black on otherwise pale grey head and face, has brownish wings and tail, and dark bill with pinkish or horn coloured base of lower mandible.
Not Threatened
Density of wintering populations at NG study site estimated at 2 birds on 10 ha.
Sluggish pale grey FC with rufous underparts. Has black forehead and lores, narrow blackish eyering, crown and upperparts pale grey, bend of wing and alula feathers blackish, flight –feather blackish, broadly edged pale grey on outer webs, tail grey, chin and throat black, upper breast pale grey, rest of underparts and UW-C orange rufous, iris dark, bill steel-blue to blue-grey, legs grey and lead-grey. Sexes alike. Juvenile is similar to adult, but lacks black on otherwise pale grey head and face, has brownish wings and tail, and dark bill with pinkish or horn coloured base of lower mandible.
16.5-19 cm, 21-29 g
Taxonomy: Muscicapa melanopsis Vieillot, 1818, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Forms a superspecies with M. frater, M. erythrostictus, M. castaneiventris and M. richardsii. Has been considered conspecific with first of those. (source: Handbook of the Birds of World)
Distribution:
- Breeds E Australia; non-breeding SE New Guinea, D’Entrecasteaux Archipelago, Trobriand Is and Louisiade Archipelago, and NE Australia (E Cape York Peninsula).
Lowland tropical and subtropical rainforest, gallery forest, eucalyptus woodland, swamp-forest and mangroves, coastal and monsoon scrub and regrowth areas. In non-breading range also edges of plantations, especially teak plantations to 800 m in NG.
Migrant
Mostly spiders, beetles, flies, bugs, including cicadas and cicadellids, also wasps, bees and sawflies and other small invertebrates.
Season Oct-Mar. Territorial. Nest built by female, conical or cup-shaped, mostly of green moss, bark strips, grass, casuarinas. Placed up to 12m from ground in vertical fork. Clutch 2-3 eggs, white to faintly reddish-white with tiny red, pinkish-red or purple spots, especially around large end. Nest parasite by Brush Cuckoo. Breeding success poor. Resident or partial migrant. Breeding visitor in SE Australia from mid-Aug, late Sept to early Apr. Small numbers of non-breading immature present in New Guinea through first year. On passage occurs singly, in pairs or in small flocks of up to ten individuals.
Common or fairly common.