Nature & living things

Bright red, never quiet, and still barely studied

This is a bird that hides in plain sight: a male with a glossy red head that calls nonstop while feeding, yet its breeding behaviour is almost undocumented — a few notes on a small cup nest in the mangroves and that is it. Its home is the mangrove fringe of tropical Australia and New Guinea, habitat most birdwatchers never wade into, which may explain the gap. It is also a case study in how conservation status depends on where you draw the line: the same bird can be near threatened in one country and of least concern globally. Five minutes here is a reminder of how much remains unrecorded about species that were formally named back in 1840.

Males wear a glossy red head; females are plain grey-brown throughout. The eggs are white with small red blotches, laid two or three at a time in a cup nest among mangrove branches.

Read the whole of Red-headed myzomela on Wikipedia

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