Habitat
Open forests and woodlands, especially those dominated by eucalypts, in temperate, subtropical and semi-arid zones, usually in flocks of 5 - 15, sometimes larger.
Voice
Loud 'chips'. A 'yet' or 'yey yet' contact call. Song: an animated 'chip-chip-chip-chip-chip', starting with separate notes, accelerating, splintering, ending with separate 'chip's'. A flat, hard trill uttered in alarm.
Brown-headed Honeyeater (Melithreptus brevirostris) [XC188237]
by nick talbot from Greenvale, Victoria, Australia (call)
Brown-headed Honeyeater (Melithreptus brevirostris) [XC407727]
by Frank Lambert from Mt Ida, Heathcote, Greater Bendigo City, Victoria, Australia (call)
Nest
Deep, cup-shaped, composed of firmly woven bark, grass, animal hair, cound with cobweb, usually suspended from a drooping branch of a eucalypt, from 2 - 15 m above the ground.
Eggs (Guide)
2 - 3; pale pink speckled with red-brown; oval; about 16 x 13 mm. Incubation: by both sexes.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fledge in about 12 - 15 days. Fed by both parents.
Subspecies
Subspecies intergrade where they abut. Subspecies pallidiceps intergrades with nominate in broad hybrid zone inland of Great Divide in Victoria, and with leucogenys in narrow zone in South Australia (extending south from about Port Augusta and southern Flinders Ranges to Yorke Peninsula). Proposed subspecies augustus (described from Port Augusta) relates to latter intergrading population.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
brevirostris (Vigors & Horsfield, 1827) - Eastern slopes of Great Divide New South Wales and both slopes in Victoria, extending western into south-eastern South Australia.
leucogenys Milligan, 1903 - Southern western Australia (from Peron Peninsula east to western Nullarbor Plain). Also southern South Australia (Eyre Peninsula).
pallidiceps Mathews, 1912 - Inland plains and western slopes of Great Divide in southern Queensland, western and central New South Wales and northern Victoria, extending western into southern South Australia.
magnirostris North, 1905 - Kangaroo I (South Australia).
wombeyi Schodde & Mason, IJ, 1999 - Otway Ranges and southern Gippsland, in southern Victoria.
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