Male: Above, slate-grey. Small white forehead spot. Wings and tail, plain grey, tinged brown. Outer tail feathers, edged and tipped white. Throat, slate-grey. Breast, rose-red. Below, white. Belly, white. Eye, dark brown. Bill, dusky. Feet, dusky. Soles of feet, yellow to orange.
Female: Above, brownish-grey. Small buff-white forehead spot. Wings, tinged browner with two broken buff-white bars through flight feathers. Tail, dark brown with whitish outershafts. Below, pale grey. Belly, white. Undertail, white. Eye, dark brown. Bill, dusky. Feet, dusky. Soles of feet, yellow to orange.
Juveniles: Mottled finely buff-white on brown.
Immatures: Resemble adult female but wing bars often more buff.
Other Names (World)
Rose Robin, Rose-breasted Robin, Rose Robin-flycatcher
Common. In autumn disperses from high ranges, migrating west in SA and north into Qld.
Habitat
Ferntree, beech, other dense moist gullies. Wetter eucalypt forests from near sea level to 1,000 m. Disperses widely in fall - winter to lowland woodlands, sub-inland, coastal scrubs, riverside vegetation.
Food
Spiders, larval stages of insects, such as, bugs, leaf-eating beetles, flies, small moths, ants and wasps.
Voice
Call: Series of week, piping notes, or dry ticking like the snapping of a small twig, by both sexes. Chirring in alarm. Song: Low, reedy series of trills of same pitch, 'reee-reee-areee', by male.
Nest
Small, cup-shaped, composed of soft fibre and moss, bound with cobweb, lined with fur or plant-down, and decorated on the outside with lichen. Usually built at a considerable height in the fork of a scrub tree. The nest is noticably smaller than that of the Pink Robin (Petroica rodinogaster).
Eggs (Guide)
2 or 3; pale green-grey or blue-grey with brown markings often conentrated in a zone at the larger end; rounded-oval; about 17 x 14 mm. Incubation: about 13 days; by female.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fed by both parents.
Subspecies
No subspecies.
Similar Species
Pink Robin (Petroica rodinogaster), which has a shorter tail, without white edges.
Compare Images
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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BirdLife International Species Factsheet