and vent. The female is duller overall. The yellow-rumped subspecies is larger overall with a relatively smaller bill. The adult male has finer, white spots on its back, a bright yellow rump, and a cream breast. The adult female has finer spots than the adult female of the nominate subspecies. The Wet Tropics subspecies is smaller with a relatively larger bill. The adult male has a reddish rump and pale- to cinnamon-buff underparts. Distribution and habitat George Caley reported that it was not common around Sydney even in early settlement days. Spotted pardalote numbers appear to be declining, especially in urban areas, but the species is not considered endangered at this time. Nesting Spotted pardalotes breed between August or September to December or January—generally earlier in the year in northern parts of their range and later in southern areas. The nest is an underground horizontal oval chamber lined with shredded bark, linked by a tunnel long to a hole in the side of a riverbank or slope in a shaded location. The chamber is generally higher than the entrance tunnel, presumably to avoid flooding. Birds have used carpet rolls and garage roll-a-doors to nest in on occasion. Pairs breed once a year, producing a clutch of 3 to 4 round shiny white eggs long by wide. The eggs are incubated for 19 days until they hatch, with nestlings spending another 21 days in the nest. Pairs make soft, whistling wheet-wheet calls to one another throughout the day, which carry for quite a distance. One of the difficulties in locating a pardalote is that the contact call is in fact two calls: an initial call and an almost instant response, and thus can come from two different directions. Gallery References External links Spotted Pardalote videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection. spotted pardalote Endemic birds of Australia Birds of Victoria (Australia) spotted pardalote Articles containing video clips Taxa named by George Shaw Taxa named by Frederick Polydore Nodder