Buff-sided robin
| Buff-sided robin | |
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| Buff-sided robin in the Northern Territory | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Petroicidae |
| Genus: | Poecilodryas |
| Species: | P. cerviniventris |
| Binomial name | |
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Poecilodryas cerviniventris (Gould, 1857) |
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| Poecilodryas cerviniventris range | |
| Synonyms | |
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The buff-sided robin (Poecilodryas cerviniventris) is a small diurnal insectivorous perching (passerine) bird in the Petroicidae family, a group commonly known as the Australo-Papuan or Australasian robins. It is also known as the buff-sided fly-robin, buff-sided shrike-robin and Isabellflankenschnäpper (German). The buff-sided robin is endemic to northern Australia where it primarily occurs in riparian forests and monsoonal vine thickets from the Kimberly region of Western Australia to the north-west Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria. The plumage of the adult birds is characterised by a dark hood and back with a prominent white stripe on the supercilium, a white throat, white wing and tail bars and a striking buff to orange patch on the flank below the wings. Adult birds are not sexually dimorphic, however males are generally larger and can be separated from females based on morphological measurements. Buff-sided robins predominantly take insects from the ground by sallying from an observational perch. Insect prey are also occasionally taken by hawking on the wing or by gleaning from the trunk or foliage of riparian vegetation.
The buff-sided robin was described as a unique species by the ornithologist and naturalist John Gould in 1857, based on specimens collected in 1856 by the naturalist and surgeon Joseph Ravenscroft Elsey. Elsey resided at the Victoria River depot of the Augustus Charles Gregory 1855 - 1856 expedition (Northern Territory to Brisbane) between January and June 1856, collecting a number of species unknown to science, including the buff-sided robin. The buff-sided robin type locality is situated on the Victoria River near of the present day township of Timber Creek. In a letter to Gould dated June 1856 Elsey related a number of field observations of the buff-sided robin, including:
"Of Fly-catchers and Robins, so called, I have seven or eight species. One robin has a slate-grey back, black head and wings, and chestnut flanks, with a white stripe over the eye; it lives in the mangroves, and may be recognized at all times by its pretty little piping note. I found it nesting in November and again in February and March; the nest is an open, shallow, slightly constructed one; the eggs two in number, dull greenish-grey, speckled with brown mostly at the larger end".
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Wikipedia