Dark-crowned White-eye Heleia dohertyi Scientific name definitions

12 cm. Nominate race has top of head blackish olive-brown, elongated crown feathers with sharply defined white dots in centres, spots becoming brownish and obsolete on hindcrown; narrow white eyering broken broadly at front, by black loral streak, and narrowly at rear; blackish feathers at side of forehead, elongate yellowish spot behind eye, olive ear-coverts; upperparts, including upperwing-coverts, greyish-olive; remiges and rectrices blackish-brown with greenish outer edges; sulphur-yellow below, colour most intense on centre of belly and grading into yellowish-white on throat and chin; iris dark brown; bill black; legs yellowish-grey. Sexes alike. Juvenile undescribed. Race subcristata has shorter crest than nominate, paler crown sharply spotted only on forecrown, yellow ear-coverts.

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Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Primary semi-evergreen rainforest, tall secondary forest, wooded cultivation and scrub; degraded Duabanga forest and montane forest. Found in degraded forest only where closed canopy and extensive understorey remain. At 200–1400 m. Generally replaced by H. superciliaris above 1200 m.

Not known.

No details of diet. Singly, in pairs and in groups of three or four individuals; often in mixed-species flocks with Heleia crassirostris. Forages quietly in understorey and dense scrub.

On Flores (race subcristata) distinctive and moderately rapid song of 14 clear, sweet whistles at even pitch, the series 5 seconds in duration, quite unlike typical white-eye notes and almost like those of Turdus thrush in quality; also a soft “tsip-tsip”.

Jul–Aug on Sumbawa; and Feb–Oct (peak May–Jun) on Flores. Clutch 2 eggs, sometimes 1 and rarely 3, light blue, sparsely to moderately dotted with variously sized coffee-brown spots, densest on blunt half, 17·9 × 13·6 mm. No other information available.

Not globally threatened. Restricted-range species: present in Northern Nusa Tenggara EBA. Locally common in primary forest at 700–1000 m; generally scarce to rare in wooded cultivation and scrub. Optimum habitat for this species being lost at fast rate on Flores and Sumbawa, and it appears to be only moderately tolerant of degradation of habitat. Perhaps should be classified as Near-threatened.