The Spectacled Monarch is blue-grey above, with a black face mask that extends across both eyes in a 'clover-leaf' pattern, rufous (red-orange) breast, white underparts and a black tail with white outer tips. Immature birds lack the black face and have a grey throat. The north Queensland subspecies albiventris has a rufous upper breast sharply defined from more extensive white underparts.
The Spectacled Monarch resembles the Black-faced Monarch, M. melanopsis, and the Black-winged Monarch, M. frater, but these species differ in having a black face mask that does not extend across the eyes, and both lack the white underparts and white outer tail tips.
The Spectacled Monarch is found in coastal north-eastern and eastern Australia, including coastal islands, from Cape York, Queensland to Port Stephens, New South Wales. It is much less common in the south. It is also found in Papua New Guinea, the Moluccas and Timor.
The Spectacled Monarch prefers thick understorey in rainforests, wet gullies and waterside vegetation, as well as mangroves.
Resident in Queensland to Rockhampton, summer breeding migrant further south.
The Spectacled Monarch feeds on insects, foraging mostly below the canopy in foliage and on tree trunks or vines.
The Spectacled Monarch builds a small cup nest of fine bark, plant fibres, moss and spider web in a tree fork or in hanging vines, 1 m - 6 m above the ground, often near water.
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