Blue-faced Honeyeater

The Blue-faced Honeyeater (Entomyzon cyanotis), is a passerine bird of the Honeyeater family Meliphagidae. It is the only member of its genus and it is most closely related to honeyeaters of the genus Melithreptus. Three subspecies are recognised. At around 29.5 cm in length, it is large for a honeyeater. Its plumage is distinctive, with olive upperparts, white underparts and a black head and throat with white nape and cheeks. Males and females are similar in external appearance. Adults have a blue area of bare skin on each side of the face readily distinguishing them from juveniles, which have yellow or green patches of bare skin.

Found in open woodland, parks, and gardens, the Blue-faced Honeyeater is common in northern and eastern Australia and southern New Guinea. It appears to be sedentary in parts of its range and locally nomadic in other parts; however, the species has been little studied. They often take over and renovate old babbler nests, in which the female lays and incubates two or rarely three eggs.

The Blue-faced Honeyeater appears to be generally sedentary within its range, especially in much of the Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales. However, in many places (generally south of the Tropic of Capricorn), populations may be present or absent at different times of the year, although this appears to result from nomadic rather than seasonal migratory movements.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-faced_Honeyeater - 10.11.2008