A large and distinctive spiderhunter, the species is mostly brown with profuse whitish streaking all over the body and bright yellow vents and uppertail coverts.

It breeds from March to at least August, making bark-lined nests in hollows it excavates in naturally occurring clumps of moss, vegetation, and roots.

It is listed as being of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, but is experiencing a population decline caused by habitat destruction.

The specific name is in honour of Julia Charlotte Sophia, the wife of the Scottish ornithologist Arthur Hay.

Their calls include a wheezy wee-chit, with the first note rising and second note falling in pitch, a complex series of nasal and wheezy wit-wit-wit-wt’wt’wt’weehee twitters and trills, and a teeh-teeh-wee, with the wee rising in pitch.

It searches for food in foliage, particularly within clumps of epiphytes high up in the forest, and has been observed probing Rhododendron flowers.

[7] The breeding season of Whitehead's spiderhunters lasts from March to at least August and males with enlarged testes have been collected in June and November.

The species' nests are bowls lined with fine, fibrous bark, made inside a hollow in naturally-occurring clumps of moss, vegetation, and roots.