Meet the Rose Robin: A Dull Grey Suit Transforms into a Spectacular Blaze of Red!

A small slender bird who wears his heart not on his sleeve, but in rose red, right there on his chest!

Meet the Rose Robin

Photo Courtesy of wag_tales / CC BY 2.0

The rose robin (Petroica rosea), is a small slender passerine bird with a relatively long tail. Males are dark gray on their upperparts, sporting a white patch above the bill with a bright rose-pink breast. The belly and outer tail feathers are white, while the wings and upper tail are a shade of dark gray.

Photo Courtesy of Aviceda / CC BY-SA 3.0

Females are mainly a shade of brown-gray, sporting a small white frontal patch. Their outer feathers are white, and off-white below, sometimes with a pale pink wash on across their breast.

Juveniles tend to resemble the female.

Photo (cropped) Courtesy of patrickkavanagh / CC BY 2.0

These birds are found in eastern and southeastern Australia, from Rockhampton east of the Great Dividing Range, through into eastern New South Wales and Victoria into southeastern South Australia.

Rose Robins like wet sclerophyll forest and rainforested areas, where it likes to inhabit gullies and valleys, filtering into the drier forest in cooler months.

Often seen flitting about in ones or twos through the tree canopy, Rose Robins like to dine on insects and spiders which form the bulk or their diet. They sometimes also catch insects on the wing. They will also dine caterpillars, wasps. weevils, and other insects.

During the breeding season Rose Robins nest between September to January when a neat, cup-shaped nest is built from moss and ferns. Spider webs, feathers, and fur are used to bind and will the nest, while lichen is placed on the nest exterior. Generally located around 33-66 feet above the ground, 2-3 eggs are laid within measuring 17 mm x 13 mm.

This species has a very large breeding range and, although the global population size has not been quantified, the species is reported to be locally quite common.