Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater

Description:

Endemic to Australia, the Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater has a "grey crown scalloped brown, a mottled grey-brown back, a white cheek with spiny bristles to below the ear, and an orange-brown throat and chest. The underparts are white, streaked brown, the wings are grey, with white-edged feathers, and the long tail is dark grey-brown with white tips. The pale blue-grey eye is surrounded by bare pinkish skin and the pink bill has a black tip." (Birdlife Australia)

Habitat:

Hanging in the backyard garden.

Notes:

This beautiful Honeyeater was heard before seen. Its singing was quite lovely to the ear and "[t]he jerky, musical call of the species has been described as a “liquid and guttural gurgling jumble”, which may stop abruptly, almost as though the bird has run out of breath, and then it suddenly starts up again. Sometimes Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters sing ‘antiphonally’, with one bird singing a snatch of song, which is immediately followed by another bird nearby singing another phrase, so that the song sounds as though it is being sung by a single bird." (Birdlife Australia)