Yellow-plumed Honeyeater
Photo: Purnell Collection © Australian Museum
Yellow-plumed Honeyeater.
Photo: Purnell Collection © Australian Museum
Distribution map of Lichenostomus ornatus
Map © Birds Australia Birdata
Yellow-plumed Honeyeater
Scientific name: Lichenostomus ornatus
Family: Meliphagidae
Order: Passeriformes
- Featured Bird Groups
- Honeyeaters
What does it look like?
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. It has a olive-green head, with a faint yellow line under the dark eye, grey-green upperparts, and heavily streaked grey-brown underparts. Young birds have a yellow bill base and eye-ring. This species is noisy and quarrelsome, moving in small groups and fighting off intruders. It is also known as the Graceful Honeyeater or Mallee Honeyeater.
Similar species
The Yellow-plumed Honeyeater may be confused with the related Grey-fronted Honeyeater, L. plumulus. It can be distinguished by its lack of a black face mask or eye-stripe and the only partial bordering of its neck plume by a black line. It also tends to be more heavily streaked below. The other similar species, the Fuscous Honeyeater, L. fuscus, has a much smaller neck plume and plain underparts.
Where does it live?
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.
Habitat
The Yellow-plumed Honeyeater is found in mallee and open woodlands of the temperate and semi-arid zones. It is mainly found in inland areas, but is also found on the coast of South Australia and Western Australia where mallee is found. It is also found in freshwater wetland areas.
Seasonal movements
Resident with some local movements in relation to food supply.
What does it do?
Feeding
The Yellow-plumed Honeyeater feeds on insects, lerps and nectar. It forages in the outer canopy of low trees and shrubs as well on the trunks and branches. It will sometimes forage on the ground. It feeds in pairs or small flocks.
Breeding
The Yellow-plumed Honeyeater nests in loose colonies or singly, with aggressive defence of the nesting territory by the males, with some evidence that groups of birds hold territories together, and will repel intruders as a group. The open, cup-shaped nest is suspended by the rim from a thin fork or from foliage of mallee eucalypts and other small shrubs. It is made from wool, green grass and spider-webs, lined with wool, grasses, plant-down and brightly-coloured feathers. Both parents feed the young, sometimes with the assistance of helpers. This species is parasitised by Fan-tailed Cuckoos, Pallid Cuckoos, Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoos and Shining Bronze-Cuckoos.
Living with us
Living with humans
The range of the Yellow-plumed Honeyeater has been severely contracted by the destruction and loss of its mallee habitat. It was common earlier in the 20th Century in the wheatbelt of Western Australia, but is now only found there in small populations in remnant woodlands. This species needs the most productive (i.e. with abundant food resources) habitats in a region, but these are the ones usually chosen for clearing, and remnants do not contain enough productive habitat for populations to remain sustainable.
References
Higgins, P.J., Peter, J.M. and Steele, W.K. (eds) 2001. Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds, Volume 5 (Tyrant-flycatchers to Chats). Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
Morcombe, M. 2000. Field guide to Australian Birds. Steve Parish Publishing.
Simpson, K and Day, N. 1999. Field guide to the birds of Australia, 6th Edition. Penguin Books, Australia.