Grey Honeyeater
Conopophila whitei
The grey honeyeater (Conopophila whitei) is a species of bird in the honeyeater family. It is an uncommon and little-known bird, an often overlooked endemic of remote areas in central Australia.
A tiny honeyeater, grey and discreet, with a nondescript colouration that is only faintly marked. The length is 10.5–12 cm.
The plumage of the upper body is generally cold grey, the lower parts paler, becoming browner until a moult. Tail and flight feathers are a blackish brown, and a slightly darker marking extends across the eye to the bill. The tips of the tail feathers are white, aging to buffish. The bill is relatively short for a honeyeater, slightly down-curved and grey, becoming black toward the tip. There is a pale and indistinct ring of feathers, tinted buff, around the eye. The colour of the iris is brown, the legs are steel grey.
Juveniles have a faintly yellowish cast to the thin eye-ring, that almost disappears as they mature, and on the pale grey feathers of the throat. The grey flight feathers of the immature birds have a yellow-green wash.
The grey honeyeater is similar in appearance to the Western gerygone (Gerygone fusca), yellow-rumped thornbill (Acanthiza chrysorrhoa) and others of the genus Acanthiza, all of which it often accompanies in mixed species flocks. Care should be taken to distinguish the grey honeyeater from the female redthroat (Pyrrholaemus brunneus)
The most common call of the grey honeyeater has been described as a piercing, metallic, quick, double squeak "chirra-wik-chirra-wik", or "cre-seek" and somewhat resembling the call of the white-bellied cuckooshrike (Coracina papuensis). It also makes a weak, grating, high-pitched tinkling or a plaintive series of notes given in quick succession, sounding like "troo-whee, troo-whee".