Yellow-plumed honeyeater
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Australian English Template:Speciesbox The yellow-plumed honeyeater (Ptilotula ornata) is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae. It is endemic to Australia, where it inhabits temperate forests and Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation.
The yellow-plumed honeyeater was previously placed in the genus Lichenostomus, but was moved to Ptilotula after a molecular phylogenetic analysis, published in 2011, showed that the original genus was polyphyletic.[1][2]
Description
The yellow-plumed honeyeater is a medium-sized honeyeater with a relatively long, down-curved black bill, a dark face and a distinctive, upswept yellow neck plume.[3] It has an olive-green head, with a faint yellow line under the dark eye, grey-green upperparts, and heavily streaked grey-brown underparts.[3] Young birds have a yellow bill base and eye-ring.[3]
Similar species include purple-gaped honeyeater,[4] grey-fronted honeyeater[3] and fuscous honeyeater.[4][3]
Call
The song is a loud, clear, three-note chier wit chier, often performed before dawn, and by males during display flight.[5]
Distribution
The yellow-plumed honeyeater is endemic to southern mainland Australia, from western New South Wales and Victoria, through South Australia to south-west Western Australia.[3]
Ecology and behaviour
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The main habitat type for yellow-plumed honeyeater is mallee.[4] They occupy a broader range of habitat in the west of their range, including dry eucalypt woodland and eucalypt open-forest.[5] They occasionally occur outside their usual habitat, such as in Acacia and Callitris woodland,[5] and seasonally in flowering red ironbark forest, flowering grey box-yellow box woodland.[4]
They occur in sedentary, colonial groups, which may relocate in response to harsh conditions.[5] They are noisy and conspicuous, and will jointly defend nesting or feeding territories, by engaging in communal wing quivering displays.[5]
Diet
Yellow-plumed honeyeaters are mainly insectivorous, foraging actively mainly in outer and upper foliage, branches and trunks of eucalypts, and taking insects on the wing by hawking. [4] They also feed opportunistically on nectar,[5] including from various mallee eucalypts, yellow gum, grey box, red ironbark, and box mistletoe.[4]
Reproduction
Yellow-plumed honeyeaters build an open, cup-shaped nest suspended by the rim from foliage or from a thin fork of mallee eucalypts and other small shrubs.[3] Nests are made from wool, green grass and spider webs, and lined with wool, grasses, plant-down and brightly-coloured feathers.[3] Both parents feed the young, sometimes with the assistance of helpers.[3]
Yellow-plumed honeyeater nests are parasitised by fan-tailed cuckoos, pallid cuckoos, Horsfield's bronze-cuckoos and shining bronze-cuckoos.[3]
Conservation actions
Conservation status
The species is listed under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as a species of Least Concern.[6]
Protected areas
The yellow-plumed honeyeater occurs in several protected areas, including:
- New South Wales
- South Australia
- Victoria
- * Greater Bendigo National Park[4]
- * Inglewood Nature Conservation Reserve[4]
- * Wychitella Nature Conservation Reserve[4]
References
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- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Tzaros, C. (2021) Wildlife of the Box-Ironbark Country. 2nd Edition, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, Victoria, Template:ISBN
- ↑ a b c d e f Menkhorst, P., Rogers, D., Clarke, R., Davies, J., Marsack, P., Franklin, K. (2019) The Australian Bird Guide: Revised Edition, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, Victoria, Template:ISBN
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External links
- Photos, audio and video of yellow-plumed honeyeater from Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library
- Recording of yellow-plumed honeyeater from Graeme Chapman's sound library