We had never seen a bird in the honeyeater family until we went to Australia last month. Our first was a New Holland Honeyeater – a handsome black and white streaked bird with a distinctive yellow wing patch. It possessed a certain boldness and aggressiveness – typical honeyeater behavior – that is helpful when trying to photograph them. It didn’t hide from us; it confronted us.
What is a honeyeater? All members of the Meliphagidae family, these small to medium-sized birds feed on nectar, insects, and fruit. Honeyeaters inhabit Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, and the Pacific Islands. There are 78 species of honeyeaters in Australia, including Australian chats, myzomelas, spinebills, friarbirds, wattlebirds, and the miners. Many of these species have a fringed tongue which allows them to harvest nectar from eucalypt blossoms. They play an important role as pollinators of native plants.
To put this into perspective, U.S. nectar eaters are far fewer in number than in Australia. Audubon Society states that U.S. “Hummingbirds and orioles are the main nectar drinkers, but mockingbirds, grosbeaks, tanagers, and several warblers also enjoy sweet drinks from flowers and tree sap.” There are only 15 species of hummingbirds and 8 species of orioles in the US.
Of the 78 Australian species of honeyeaters, we were fortunate to see 26 total in Sydney, the state of New South Wales, and on Naturalist Journey’s Queensland Wet Tropics Tour. We also saw several other nectar-feeding birds including the Sahal Sunbird, Silvereye and Rainbow Lorikeet — all colorful, noisy, charismatic, and aggressive. Like hummingbirds, they vigorously defend their nectar supplies.
Australian author and biologist Tim Low regards this behavior as normal: “Birds all over the world fight over flowers.” He added that “Most of the fighting is initiated by a group whose aggression has helped it become Australia’s largest family of birds, the honeyeaters…honeyeaters and parrots benefit from the vast supplies of sugar and starch available from the eucalypts and other bird-adapted plants.” Low further explained the loudness of nectar birds which was evident to us during our recent Australian travels: “Nectar birds are loud because their food repays defense. A fruit, seed or insect is gone after it is eaten, but flowers supply nectar hour after hour, often day after day.”
Eucalyptus forests are where honeyeaters thrive. Known for their aromatic leaves, distinctive bark, and flammable oil-rich foliage, eucalypts are the dominant forest type in Australia, comprising 77% of its total native forest. They include more than 800 species. While most eucalypts are in Australia, they are also native to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
According to the Australian Department of Agriculture, these trees “evolved from rainforest ancestors, adapting to an environment in which drought, nutrient-poor soils and fire were increasingly common.” This describes vast areas of eastern and coastal Australia as shown on the map.
Like many other species of birds and wildlife, some honeyeaters are declining due to habitat destruction for agriculture, other forms of development, and fires. The Regent Honeyeater is one of these. Native to south-eastern Australia, it is critically endangered. We did not see one in our travels, which included eight days with professional birding guides.
The eucalypt forest and honeyeaters form a symbiotic relationship that makes Australia one of the best places in the world to experience this forest type, and the many birds that rely upon it for food and shelter. The sights, smells, and rancorous sounds of these birds are unforgettable. In the words of Tim Low: “Australia is a land in which some of the world’s loudest, smartest and most colourful birds are thriving.”
Sources:
Audubon Society website http://audubon.org/news
Australian Forest Profiles: Eucalypt by the Australian Department of Agriculture
Australian Zoologist article on Ecology of Honeyeaters https://meridian.allenpress.com/australian-zoologist/article/38/1/130/134738/Ecology-of-Honeyeaters-Meliphagidae-in-Western
Cornell Lab of Ornithology website – http://allaboutbirds.com
Where Song Began – Australia’s Birds and How They Changed the World, by Tim Low
Photos: All taken by author, except the Eucalyptus Forest photo taken by New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service website: https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/environments/eucalypt-forest-environments
