Yellow-faced honeyeater

The yellow-faced honeyeater (Caligavis chrysops) is a small to medium-sized bird in the honeyeater family, Meliphagidae. It takes its common and scientific names from the distinctive yellow stripes on the sides of its head. Its loud, clear call often begins twenty or thirty minutes before dawn. It is widespread across eastern and southeastern Australia, in open sclerophyll forests from coastal dunes to high-altitude subalpine areas, and woodlands along creeks and rivers. Comparatively short-billed for a honeyeater, it is thought to have adapted to a diet of flies, spiders, and beetles, as well as nectar and pollen from the flowers of plants, such as Banksia and Grevillea, and soft fruits. It catches insects in flight as well as gleaning them from the foliage of trees and shrubs.

Some yellow-faced honeyeaters are sedentary, but hundreds of thousands migrate northwards between March and May to spend the winter in southern Queensland, and return in July and August to breed in southern New South Wales and Victoria. They form socially monogamous pairs and lay two or three eggs in a delicate cup-shaped nest. The success rate can be low, and the pairs nest several times during the breeding season.

Honeyeaters' preferred woodland habitat is vulnerable to the effects of land-clearing, grazing, and weeds. As it is common and widespread, the yellow-faced honeyeater is considered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to be of least concern for conservation. It is considered a pest in orchards in some areas.

The yellow-faced honeyeater is a medium-small, greyish-brown bird that takes its common name from distinctive yellow stripes on the sides of the head. Yellow feathers form a narrow stripe above the gape, which broadens and curves below the eye to end in a small white patch of feathers on the ear coverts. Above the yellow stripe is a black eye stripe which is broken by a small yellow to off-white patch behind the eye, and below is another distinct black stripe running the length of the yellow line. The chin, throat, and breast are a pale greyish-brown, streaked with slightly darker grey, and the abdomen is light grey. The upper body is a dark greyish-brown to olive-brown. Olive-green outer edges on the remiges combine to form an olive panel on the folded wing. The bill is black and slightly down-curved, and the gape is cream. The legs and feet are grey-brown. The iris is a dusky blue in adult birds, and brown in juveniles. The juvenile is very similar to the adult, with slightly less streaking on the breast, an orange-brown tip on the bill, and a yellower gape; male and female birds are also similar, with the male being slightly larger (on average, 0.8 g (0.03 oz) heavier); and in the field there are no visible differences between the subspecies. The yellow-faced honeyeater averages 15–17.5 centimetres (5.9–6.9 in) in length, with a wingspan of 21.5–26 cm (8.5–10.2 in), and a weight of 12.5–20.5 grams (0.44–0.72 oz), with an average of 17 g (0.60 oz)).

One of the first birds heard in the morning, the yellow-faced honeyeater utters calls that are full and loud, and extremely varied. The male sings from a roost for up to an hour, beginning twenty or thirty minutes before dawn. The song is a running series of cheerful notes sounding like chick-up, chick-up, from which its common name of quitchup is derived. Counter-singing (repeating the first bird's song) by neighbouring birds is common. The territorial call, also given by opponents during fights, is a long preet with an upward inflection. The alarm call is a loud trilling whistle. Common calls, thought to be contact calls, are animated two-note calls variously described as terric, terric, cr-rook, cr-rook or put-put, put-put.