This honeyeater has a black head and a white nape band. It lives in woodland and forest in northern and eastern Australia and New Guinea; pairs or small groups may hold year-round territories.
It is about 14 cm long, with a black head, short black bill, white nape crescent, yellow-green upperparts, and pale underparts. A white or pale blue patch of bare skin sits above the eye.
It feeds on nectar and insects. In southeastern Queensland, pairs or groups of three to five birds have been reported holding year-round territories of about 3 hectares.
It gives high-pitched whistles as single notes or bursts of notes at the same pitch.
At Cooktown, a nest 6 m above ground in Eucalyptus alba was parasitised by a Brush Cuckoo; a dependent cuckoo fledgling was seen on 2 June 1992.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.