Flame Robin
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| Petroica phoenicea Gould, 1837 |
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 Flame Robin range
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The Flame Robin (Petroica phoenicea) is a moderately common resident of the coolest parts of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Like the other two red-breasted Petroica robins—the Scarlet Robin and the Red-capped Robin—it is often simply but inaccurately called the robin redbreast.
Like many brightly coloured robins of the Petroicidae it is sexually dimorphic. The male has a brilliant orange-red chest and throat, and white frons. Its upperparts are iron-grey with white bars, and its tail black with white tips. The female is an undistinguished grey-brown. The robin has a small black bill and eyes.
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[edit] Taxonomy
Like all Australian Robins, it is not closely related to either the European Robin or the American Robin, but belongs rather to the Corvida parvorder comprising many tropical and australian passerines including pardalotes, Fairy-wrens and honeyeaters as well as crows. It belongs to the genus Petroica, whose Australian members are known colloquially as "Red Robins" as distinct from the "Yellow Robins" of the genus Eopsaltria.
The Flame Robin was first described by the French naturalists Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard in 1830 as Muscicapa chrysoptera.[1] It was later described in its current genus by John Gould in 1837 as Petroica phoenicea, and it was this latter binomial name that was used since that time. Given this, Quoy and Gaimard's name was declared a nomen oblitum and Gould's a nomen protectum.
It was previously commonly known as the Flame-breasted Robin, and was gradually abbreviated to Flame Robin.[2]
[edit] Description
Birds are around 14 cm (6 in) in length. The male Flame Robin is easily distinguished by its bright orange-red plumage of the throat, breast and abdomen. The colour alone is not a reliable guide, as some Scarlet Robins take on an orange hue, but while male Scarlet and Red-capped Robins have red breasts and black throats, the Flame Robin's breast plumage extends right up to the base of the bill. The male has dark grey head, back and tail, with a white frons, wing bar and outer tail shafts. It is also a little slimmer and has a smaller head than the Scarlet Robin, and is clearly larger than the Red-capped. The female is plain-coloured; pale brown overall, and a lighter buff underneath, with small white marks on wings and over the bill. The bill, legs and eyes are black.[3]
[edit] Behaviour
Flame Robins mostly breed in and around the Great Dividing Range, the Tasmanian highlands and islands in Bass Strait.[4] With the coming of cooler autumn weather, most birds disperse to lower and warmer areas, some travelling as far as eastern South Australia, southern Queensland, or (in the case of some Tasmanian birds) across Bass Strait to Victoria. Birds breeding in the warmer climates north of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales tend to retain their highland territories all year round.
[edit] Feeding
Like all Australasian robins, they are perch and pounce hunters, mainly eating insects, and often returning to a favourite low perch several times to stand erect and motionless, scanning the leaf-litter for more prey. They are typically seen in pairs (during the spring and summer breeding season) or in loose companies in more open country during winter.
[edit] Breeding
Breeding season is August to January with one or two broods raised. The nest is a neat deep cup made of soft dry grass, moss and bark. Spider webs, feathers and fur are used for binding/filling, generally in a tree fork or crevice, or cliff or riverbank ledge, generally within a few metres of the ground. Three or four dull white eggs tinted bluish, greyish or brownish and splotched with dark grey-brown are laid measuring 18 mm x 14 mm.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Quoy, J.R.C. & Gaimard, J.P. in Dumont-d'Urville, J. (1830). Voyage de découvertes de l'Astrolabe exécuté par ordre du Roi, pendant les anneés 1826-1827-1828-1829, sous le commandement de M.J. Dumont-d'Urville. Zoologie. Paris: J. Tastu Vol. 1
- ^ Boles, Walter E. (1988). The Robins and Flycatchers of Australia. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, p. 68. ISBN 0-207-15400-7.
- ^ Simpson K, Day N, Trusler P (1993). Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. Ringwood, Victoria: Viking O'Neil, p. 174. ISBN 0-670-90478-3.
- ^ a b Beruldsen, G (2003). Australian Birds: Their Nests and Eggs. Kenmore Hills, Qld: self, p. 341. ISBN 0-646-42798-9.
- BirdLife International (2004). Petroica phoenicea. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is near threatened
[edit] External links
- Flame Robin videos on the Internet Bird Collection
