41 Tune Your Ear - Honeyeaters
About this episode
Honeyeaters can sound familiar until you listen more closely. This Tune Your Ear episode helps you learn the calls of common Australian honeyeaters, including Eastern Spinebill, New Holland Honeyeater, Yellow-faced Honeyeater and White-plumed Honeyeater.
Episode illustration: White-plumed Honeyeater
Resources
New Holland Honeyeater recording by Marc Anderson (XC172248)
Noisy Miner Honeyeater recording by David Vander Pluym (XC387136)
Yellow-faced Honeyeater recording by Greg McLachlan (XC361497)
White-plumed Honeyeater recording by Henk Krajenbrink (XC241047)
Marc Anderson's recordings were licensed from wildambience.com
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Kirsty: This episode was recorded on the country of the Boonwurrung Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to Elders past and present. I would like to thank them for the privilege of working, playing and exploring this magnificent part of the world. Before the Great Pyramids in Egypt had even been built, the Boonwurrung Bunurong people were here and they live here today looking after Country, after their families and looking after the community.
Kirsty: Welcome to Weekend Birder. I'm Kirsty Costa and I'm a teacher, conservationist and a total bird nerd. This is the final episode of Tune Your Ear for Season One. So far, we have listened to pardalotes, lorikeets, whistlers, rails and crakes. And now, friends, it's time to tune our ears to the sound of honeyeaters. Carol Probets introduced us to the world of honeyeaters in Episode 14.
Carol: Wherever you are in Australia, there's going to be some sort of honeyeater around. You know, from the alpine areas to the driest deserts to the coasts to the tropics. Everywhere in Australia there are some sorts of honeyeaters and they're so variable. They range from the tiny Scarlet Honeyeater, which is about the size of a gum leaf up to wattlebirds, which are the largest of wattlebirds, the Yellow Wattlebird, which is 45cm long. So it's pretty big size range. They tend to be dominant, pugnacious birds in the environment. They're always squabbling with each other, chasing each other away from the best flowers. They're very agile, fast flying and able to hang upside down and very acrobatic birds. But the word 'honeyeater' is actually a bit of a misnomer. They don't eat honey. They do eat nectar from flowers but to various degrees. So some of them rely very largely on nectar and others less so. All honeyeaters also feed on insects in addition to nectar and things like insect secretions. So that's things like lerps and honeydew and fruit at times. They have actually quite a wide variety of food. Some of the features that distinguish honeyeaters, they have a brush-like tongue. If you imagine a little paintbrush that they can move in and out of their bill so it can extend beyond the tip of the bill, which they use that to gather up the nectar out of the flowers. They all have a slightly down-curved bill. It might be long and thin or it might be shorter and thicker, but it's always slightly downcurved. And another thing about them is that when you're identifying them, it's often the features on the face.
Kirsty: In this episode, we are going to listen to eight common honeyeaters found in Australia. Their call may slightly depend on which area they are living in and what they're saying to each other, but we can get a general idea of some of their sounds. So let's start with the Eastern Spinebill. This is one of our smaller honeyeaters at 15 to 17cm long. It is named after its long thin bill, which has a curved tip and a special purpose. The Eastern Spinebill hovers a lot like hummingbirds of the northern hemisphere, reaching into flowers with its bill and long tongue. In order to feed on nectar, you will find this honeyeater along the eastern and south eastern regions of Australia in forests, woodlands and gardens that have an abundance of flowering plants. This bird is generally non-migratory, so it tends to hang out in the same area all year round. The Eastern Spinebill has distinct plumage, which we've learned in previous episodes means the color patterns and textures of its feathers. It has a black head with a white stripe behind its eye, a chestnut colored back and a white throat and underparts. It also has a dark stripe across its chest. The calls of the Eastern Spine bill are complex and melodic from high pitched or "tsit, tsit, tsit" sound to songs that include trills and warbles. This recording is by Ramit Singal in Devonport, Tasmania, on the country of the Palawa people.
<Recording of an Eastern Spinebill>
Kirsty: That call of the Eastern Spinebill is really familiar to me and I often hear it as I walk through the forests of the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne. Let's listen to a second recording of an Eastern Spinebill to hear a different song. This is by Marc Anderson at Wollemi National Park in New South Wales on Wiradjuri Country.
<Recording of an Eastern Spinebill>
Kirsty: Our next honeyeater is the New Holland Honeyeater. This bird is found in south, eastern and south-western Australia and you will know it as soon as you see it because it has a really unique plumage that sets it apart from other birds. Look out for its black head, white collar, black and white striped chest and bright yellow patches on its wings. The New Holland Honeyeater will migrate within its local area in the search for food, shelter and places to nest. It is a highly vocal bird and has a diverse range of calls. That is why it is known as the "djidi djidi" by the Noongar people of south-west Western Australia, the "wirra-paringa" by the Kaurna people of South Australia and "bilya-bilya" by the Dharawal people of New South Wales. One of my favourite calls of the New Holland Honeyeater is the "tink" or "tink-tink". This recording is by Marc Anderson in New South Wales on Dharawal Country.
<Recording of a New Holland Honeyeater>
Kirsty: The next honeyeater, the Noisy Miner has a bit of a reputation for being a bully. The reason why is that it lives in a complex social structure. Noisy Miners live in family groups called 'colonies' or 'mobs' and engage in cooperative breeding where Miners that are non-breeding will actually help to raise the young of others. Their complex social structure also causes them to be territorial, and they will aggressively defend their group's territory against intruders, including other birds. They will work as a group to attack and drive away potential threats, including larger birds and sometimes humans. Another reason why the Noisy Miner is well known is that it has found lots of ways to thrive in urban areas. In fact, it was the second most common bird seen by participants of BirdLife Australia's 2022 Aussie Bird Count. Its diverse diet includes nectar, pollen, insects, spiders, fruits and even small reptiles like lizards. In Episode 35, Tom Hunt shared his knowledge and experience about creating bird friendly gardens while also thinking about the power of Noisy Miners in their habitat.
Tom: The other thing about planting is that in Australia, of course, we have lots of nectar feeding birds, and planting native flowers is a good way to attract some some different species to your garden. The problem is, is that a lot of the humans are attracted to the bigger showiest flowers that there are, and those flowers are often have evolved over prehistory to attract the biggest pollinating birds. Your things like your wattlebirds, your Rainbow Lorikeets and and your Noisy Miners, which Noisy Miners especially are very, very aggressive birds. They're natives but they have done very well in towns and cities. They can really aggressively defend a patch of flowering plants. So if we plant lots of eucalypts with big flowers and you can get some grevilleas with amazingly large flowers, with lots and lots of nectar, that actually can mean that you scare away the smaller species you might be trying to attract because these big bully birds come in wanting all that nectar and they're very aggressive to those smaller species. So again, if you're looking for native flowering plants that might attract birds, I would recommend going for the smaller flowered grevilleas. Some of them are still utterly spectacular things like kangaroo paw, which have relatively small flowers which the bigger birds can't get into as easily, and some of the smaller banksia species. But even if you do have some of these showy, showy flowers, as long as you have those really dense areas that we talked about before for smaller birds to hide in, they can they'll still come, they'll pop out and take a bit of nectar from those bigger flowers and still be able to feed before the bigger birds chase them away.
Kirsty: Like all native birds, the Noisy Miner should be respected and cared for. That being said, we can actually engineer our gardens so that the Noisy Miner isn't the only dominant bird in the area. As Tom said, choose a range of plants and trees that have flowers and provide nectar, and also ones that provide places for little birds to feed and hide. The Noisy Miner is mainly grey in colour with black feathers that run from the head to the nape of its neck. It has a bright yellow beak, bright splotch in its eye and a yellow patch on its wing. This recording by David Vander Pluym is of three birds communicating in Wombeyan in New South Wales on Gandangara Country.
<Recording of a Noisy Miner>
Kirsty: Listen out for Noisy Miners can get real loud. In Episode 14, Carol Probets described the migration of the Yellow-faced Honeyeater through the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
Carol: It's a phenomenon actually, that's called the 'honeyeater migration'. And it's not just the honeyeaters that migrate, but it's predominantly the honeyeaters. And it just so happens that the Blue Mountains is one of the best places in Australia to see that. Not long after I first moved to the mountains, I started noticing in certain places in autumn you just had this constant stream of particularly Yellow-faced Honeyeater is just coming through in hundreds and hundreds. On a good day it's just totally overwhelming the number of birds that fly through. It's actually one of the most spectacular migration events in Australia, and yet hardly anybody knows about it. I mean, people talk about the whale migration and the big migrations in other continents but we have our own spectacular thing here - the honeyeater migration.
Kirsty: I don't know about you, but watching the honeyeaters migrate north during the winter is now officially on my birdwatching bucket list. The Yellow-faced Honeyeater does indeed have a yellow face, a bright yellow patch of feathers that extends from its eye to the back of its head. This yellow mask stands out against its black head, throat and upper breast. It also has a really long tongue that it can extend and reach deeply into flowers. It can be found in a range of habitats across eastern and south eastern Australia, including coastal areas woodlands, forest, heathlands and the suburbs of cities and towns. This bird also has a great range of calls from melodious songs, chattering notes and harsh alarm calls in bird watching language. A bird's contact call is a call that it uses to communicate with its partner or others in its group. 'Contact call' is a way for birds to keep in touch with each other, especially when moving through a habitat. Yellow-faced Honeyeaters make a contact call that sounds a bit like chick or chick. This recording is by Greg McLaughlan in Michelago, New South Wales on Ngarigal Country.
<Recording of Yellow-faced Honeyeater>
Kirsty: In the bird world, a 'plume' means a long, soft, feathery structure that sticks out of a bird's body during courtship or territorial displays. Certain birds may erect or spread their plumes to create a really impressive effect. Plumes can also help a bird regulate its body temperature by trapping air close to its body. In this case, though, just to make things a little confusing for us, the plume on a White-plumed Honeyeater simply describes the white streak of feathers that extends from behind its eye to the back of its head. Its plume doesn't really play a role like other birds. The White-plumed Honeyeater also has a black head, neck upper body and also its underparts are white. Like other honeyeaters, it breeds during spring and summer. It builds a cup-shaped nest in the fork of a tree branch using twigs, grass and spider webs. The female lays 2 to 5 eggs, which are incubated by both parents until the chicks hatch. About two weeks later, the parents feed their chicks insects and larvae until they are ready to leave the nest. After another 2 to 3 weeks, White-plumed Honeyeaters make a variety of calls. I love hearing their chatter call, which is a series of rapid, high pitched notes. This recording is by Henk Krajenbrink in Mount Remarkable National Park, which is known as "Wan-gyarra" by the Nukunu people of South Australia.
<Recording of White-plumed Honeyeater>
Kirsty: We have three honeyeaters to go. This next one feels really familiar to me. I grew up listening to Red Wattlebirds outside my bedroom window in Melbourne. They are one of the largest honeyeaters in Australia at about 35 to 40cm in length. The wattle on a Red Wattlebird is the bright red, fleshy skin that hangs down from the side of its neck when it is trying to impress a mate. This wattle can become inflated or extended. Imagine that, like other honeyeaters, the Red Wattlebird has an important role in its ecosystem because it uses its long beak to feed and then carry pollen from flower to flower, which helps the plant pollinate. They are super smart birds and scientists have observed them solving problems like using tools such as sticks and leaves to extract their prey from a crack in the concrete or a log. Their smarts have enabled them to thrive in different habitats in eastern and southern Australia. They have a loud and distinctive call that consists of various harsh, grating and melodious notes. Their calls are often heard in a repetitive pattern which helps them to establish and defend their territories. This recording is by Catherine Clover at Merri Creek in Melbourne on Wurundjeri Country. Shout out to the Friends of Merri Creek for all the work that they are doing in this important part of the world.
<Recording of a Red Wattlebird>
Kirsty: Now, here's my confession. Up until recently, I didn't realize that there was another species of wattlebird living in Melbourne. I just thought that the Little Wattlebird was actually a juvenile or female Red Wattlebird. My eyes popped open in my head when I found out that this is actually a separate species. And imagine my delight when I found out that the Little Wattlebird can actually mimic sounds, including the calls of other birds and things in its environment. You will find it in eastern, southern and south Western Australia. The Little Wattlebird is mostly dark, grey, brown above with faint white shafts on each of its feathers. The underparts are grey and streaked with white. Its eye is blue grey, except in Western Australia, where its eye is red. In episode one, my mum, Merrilyn, said that she always knows when a wattlebird is flying past.
Merrilyn: Well, one way of telling is just a tail feathers because they fan out in a concave shape and then when they're flying they sort of go flap-flap-glide, flap-flap-glide, flap-flap-glide. So you know that that is a wattlebird.
Kirsty: Little Wattlebirds are skilled and agile fliers. They can perform acrobatics in the air, including quick changes in direction, hovering and diving. And this allows them to navigate through dense vegetation with ease. This recording by Jeremy Hegge is of a Little Wattlebird taking a bath and singing in Brisbane Water National Park on Guringai Country. See if you can also hear the Striated Pardalote in the background.
<Recording of a Little Wattlebird>
Kirsty: Our final honeyeater is the Brown Honeyeater. It's tiny but mighty because it is one of the smallest honeyeaters in Australia, about 11 to 13cm long. But it has a loud and strong melodious song that carries through its habitat. Despite its name, the Brown Honeyeater isn't all brown. It has a combination of brown, olive and grey feathers. It also has a bright yellow patch on its throat and upper breast. It has a slightly shorter bill than the other honeyeaters that we've been listening to. You will find it in northern and western parts of Australia during the wet season. It then migrates to southern Australia during the dry season in search of nectar producing flowers and insects. That being said, some populations don't migrate at all because they've got stable food all year round. The Brown Honeyeaters contact call is a melodious sound. This recording by Colin Trainor is in Nightcliff in Darwin, on the Country of the Larrakia people.
<Recording of a Brown Honeyeater>
Kirsty: You have tuned your ear to eight common Australian honeyeaters. Here's a weird fact - some honeyeaters occasionally use what is called 'anting behaviour'. They deliberately allow ants to crawl on their feathers in order to expose themselves to formic acid released by the ants. This acid acts as a natural insect repellent, and scientists think that honeyeaters do it to stop parasites and mites from crawling onto their bodies. Birds are so smart! Friends, this is the last Tune Your Ear episode for Season One. In the next and final episode of the season, you will discover some good news stories from around Australia. Many thanks to all the people who have taken the time to share their bird recordings on the xeno-canto website. Links to these recordings can also be found in the show notes. Do you have a topic request for Weekend Bird Season Two? Email me at hello@weekendbirder.com or complete the form on the Weekend Birder website and I'll do some sleuthing to see what is possible.
