It occupies the same breeding territory each year, and lays two or three eggs in a cup-shaped nest woven from grass and soft bark.

While the brown honeyeater is declining in some areas, such as the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, overall its population levels and distribution are sufficient to have it described by the IUCN as being of least concern for conservation.

[2] Vigors and Horsfield were working from the bird collection of the Linnean Society in London, and they said of the brown honeyeater specimen, "It is however in very bad condition, and scarcely admits of a description.

[5] A 2017 genetic study using both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA confirms the close relationship between the two, their lineages having diverged recently (in the order of tens of thousands of years).

[6] Molecular analysis has shown honeyeaters to be related to the Pardalotidae (pardalotes), Acanthizidae (Australian warblers, scrubwrens, thornbills, etc.

The only distinguishing features are a small yellow patch behind the eye, which is indistinct in some birds, and dull yellow-olive panels in the folded wings and tail.

[5] Compared with L. i. indistincta, the male L. i. ocularis has slightly darker feathers on the top of the head with a greater contrast between crown and nape, and a longer bill.

[11] The nominate race ranges across a broad band from Newcastle on the New South Wales coast north and west to Queensland and the Top End to southwestern Western Australia.

It is rarely seen in Sydney, where populations have declined since the late 1950s, though it is being recorded in suitable habitats, such as Homebush Bay and Kurnell in small numbers, and is a vagrant to the Illawarra region.

[5] L. i. ocularis is found in New Guinea, the Torres Strait Islands, and Cape York intergrading with the nominate race along the Gulf of Carpentaria river system.

[11] For example, there are marked increases in numbers in Toowoomba in southeast Queensland during winter, and in the Northern Territory the range contracts during the dry season.

In the arid and semi-arid inland of Australia, it is most often recorded in Acacia, Grevillea and Hakea shrubland along watercourses, and at bores, springs, and drainage lines.

It visits flowering shrubs in parks and gardens, and occurs in remnant patches of trees on travelling stock routes.

[5] A busy, acrobatic bird, the brown honeyeater is frequently on the wing, hovering over flowers and pursuing insects in flight.

[9] The brown honeyeater feeds mainly in the foliage and flowers in the canopy of trees and shrubs, though it does use all levels of the habitat including the ground.

Main sources of nectar include flowering mistletoe and mangroves, bloodwood, woollybutt, cajeput, and Banksia and Grevillea species.

[18] The nest is built in a variety of vegetation types, usually in dense foliage in the fork of a horizontal branch, often near water, and rarely more than 2 metres (6.6 ft) above ground.

[5] The brown honeyeater population is declining in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia as a result of the clearing of native vegetation.