Yesterday afternoon I walked in the Mia Mia … hoping to get a drenching from the promised thunderstorms.
The rain stayed away, but thankfully we received 20mm overnight.
The good sign was a juvenile Red-capped Robin, found in the Rough Wattle to the west of Mia Mia Track and in the company of Buff-rumped Thornbills and Superb Fairy-wrens. Juvenile robins, like quite a number of the songbirds, are distinguished by blotchy patterning that serves as excellent camouflage. Young ‘red-caps’ are much paler, smaller and slimmer than juvenile Scarlet Robins which breed regularly in this area but then appear to depart over summer.
Nearby I spotted an adult male Red-capped Robin … with a couple of puzzling features, firstly the gape colour (yellow rather than black at the base) and also the general appearance of the head feathers (quite pale ear-coverts and light brown overall rather than the usual jet black).
Immature male Red-capped Robins resemble the female (see here), often with a reddish wash across the breast – young birds are known to breed in this plumage. The adult male pictured here is, I think, more likely to be an older bird (some adults retain a pale gape) showing signs of feather wear and possibly moulting into fresh plumage.
Juvenile Red-capped Robin, Mia Mia Track, 2nd January 2020
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Red-capped Robin (male), Mia Mia Track, 2nd January 2020
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List: Crested Bellbird, Brown-headed Honeyeater, Fuscous Honeyeater, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, Striated Thornbill, Weebill, Peaceful Dove.
About every feb -mar I used to see the Red-caps at Woodlands go through that end of seaons moult. Perhaps this one is taking an early start. The little wisps of white on the crown were typicl of the moulting bird.