The yellow-faced honeyeater (''Caligavis chrysops'') is a small to medium-sized bird in the
honeyeater family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
, Meliphagidae. It takes its common and scientific names from the distinctive yellow stripes on the sides of its head. Its loud, clear call often begins twenty or thirty minutes before dawn. It is widespread across eastern and southeastern Australia, in open
sclerophyll
Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct ...
forests from coastal dunes to high-altitude
subalpine areas, and
woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...
s along creeks and rivers. Comparatively short-billed for a honeyeater, it is thought to have adapted to a diet of flies, spiders, and beetles, as well as nectar and pollen from the flowers of plants, such as ''
Banksia
''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and fruiting "cones" and heads. ''Banksias'' range ...
'' and ''
Grevillea
''Grevillea'', commonly known as spider flowers, is a genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the family Proteaceae. Plants in the genus ''Grevillea'' are shrubs, rarely trees, with the leaves arranged alternately along the b ...
'', and soft fruits. It catches insects in flight as well as
gleaning
Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. It is a practice described in the Hebrew Bible that became a legall ...
them from the foliage of trees and shrubs.
Some yellow-faced honeyeaters are sedentary, but hundreds of thousands
migrate northwards between March and May to spend the winter in southern
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, establishe ...
, and return in July and August to breed in southern
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
and
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
. They form
socially monogamous pairs and lay two or three eggs in a delicate
cup-shaped nest. The success rate can be low, and the pairs nest several times during the breeding season.
Honeyeaters' preferred woodland habitat is vulnerable to the effects of land-clearing, grazing, and weeds. As it is common and widespread, the yellow-faced honeyeater is considered by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...
(IUCN) to be of
least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
for conservation. It is considered a pest in orchards in some areas.
Taxonomy
The yellow-faced honeyeater was first
described, and placed in the genus ''
Sylvia'', by ornithologist
John Latham in his 1801 work ''Supplementum Indicis Ornithologici, sive Systematis Ornithologiae''.
French ornithologist
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot
Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist.
Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collec ...
described it as ''Melithreptus gilvicapillus'' in 1817, and English zoologist
George Robert Gray
George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother ...
as ''Ptilotis trivirgata'' in 1869.
The specific name ''chrysops'' is derived from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
words ''chrysos'' meaning 'gold' and ''prosopo'' meaning 'face', in reference to the stripe of yellow feathers.
The yellow-faced honeyeater was classified in the genera ''
Meliphaga
''Meliphaga'' is a genus of birds in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae.
The genus was introduced by the English artist John Lewin in 1808. The name ''Meliphaga'' combines the Ancient Greek meaning "honey" and meaning eating. The type species ...
'' and then ''
Lichenostomus
''Lichenostomus'' is a genus of honeyeaters endemic to Australia.
The genus formerly contained twenty species but it was split after a molecular phylogenetic analysis published in 2011 showed that the genus was polyphyletic. Former members were ...
'' until 2011.
Delineating the latter genus had been systematically contentious, and evaluations of relationships among honeyeaters in the genus, using dense
taxon
In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...
and
nucleotide
Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecule ...
sampling, confirmed previous findings that ''Lichenostomus'' is not
monophyletic.
Five species have previously been described as comprising the ''Caligavis'' subgroup, but studies, using the
mitochondrial DNA, identified the yellow-faced honeyeater as most closely related to the
black-throated honeyeater (''C. subfrenatus'') and the
obscure honeyeater (''C. obscurus'') of New Guinea; they were, therefore, grouped into the genus ''
Caligavis
''Caligavis'' is a genus of honeyeaters endemic to New Guinea and Australia. It includes former members of ''Lichenostomus'', and was created after a molecular phylogenetic analysis published in 2011 showed that the original genus was polyphyle ...
''. The generic name derives from the Latin ''caligo'' 'mist, obscurity' and ''avis'' 'bird'. The
bridled honeyeater (''B. frenatus'') and the
Eungella honeyeater (''B. hindwoodi'') were sufficiently different to be placed in a separate genus as ''
Bolemoreus''.
A 2017 genetic study, using both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, found the ancestor of the yellow-faced honeyeater diverged from the common ancestor of the other two ''Caligavis'' species around seven million years ago.
There are three
subspecies of the yellow-faced honeyeater, two of which were described by
Gregory Mathews
Gregory Macalister Mathews CBE FRSE FZS FLS (10 September 1876 – 27 March 1949) was an Australian-born amateur ornithologist who spent most of his later life in England.
Life
He was born in Biamble in New South Wales the son of Robert H. M ...
in 1912.
There are only very slight differences between the nominate race and ''C. c. samueli'' found in the
Mount Lofty Ranges
The Mount Lofty Ranges are a range of mountains in the Australian state of South Australia which for a small part of its length borders the east of Adelaide. The part of the range in the vicinity of Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and ...
in
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
, and ''C. c. barroni'' from the
Clarke Range and the
Atherton Tableland in
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, establishe ...
. The latter race is described as "poorly differentiated" and "possibly not worthy of recognition" by the ''
Handbook of the Birds of the World''.
The Surgeon-General of New South Wales
John White caught a specimen in May 1788 calling it a yellow-faced flycatcher in his ''Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales'', which was published in 1790.
Latham called it the black-cheeked warbler.
[ ]John Gould
John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist. He published a number of monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, including Edward Lear, ...
called it the yellow-faced honeyeater in 1848, which has become its official name. It is also known as the yellow-gaped honeyeater, or the quitchup, in reference to its call.
Description
Appearance
The yellow-faced honeyeater is a medium-small, greyish-brown bird that takes its common name from distinctive yellow stripes on the sides of the head. Yellow feathers form a narrow stripe above the gape
The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for eating, preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food ...
, which broadens and curves below the eye to end in a small white patch of feathers on the ear coverts. Above the yellow stripe is a black eye stripe which is broken by a small yellow to off-white patch behind the eye, and below is another distinct black stripe running the length of the yellow line. The chin, throat, and breast are a pale greyish-brown, streaked with slightly darker grey, and the abdomen is light grey. The upper body is a dark greyish-brown to olive-brown. Olive-green outer edges on the remiges
Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tai ...
combine to form an olive panel on the folded wing. The bill is black and slightly down-curved, and the gape is cream. The legs and feet are grey-brown. The iris
Iris most often refers to:
*Iris (anatomy), part of the eye
*Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess
* ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
* Iris (color), an ambiguous color term
Iris or IRIS may also refer to:
Arts and media
Fictional ent ...
is a dusky blue in adult birds, and brown in juveniles. The juvenile is very similar to the adult, with slightly less streaking on the breast, an orange-brown tip on the bill, and a yellower gape; male and female birds are also similar, with the male being slightly larger (on average, heavier); and in the field there are no visible differences between the subspecies. The yellow-faced honeyeater averages in length, with a wingspan of , and a weight of , with an average of ).
Vocalizations
One of the first birds heard in the morning, the yellow-faced honeyeater utters calls that are full and loud, and extremely varied. The male sings from a roost for up to an hour, beginning twenty or thirty minutes before dawn. The song is a running series of cheerful notes sounding like ''chick-up, chick-up'', from which its common name of quitchup is derived. Counter-singing (repeating the first bird's song) by neighbouring birds is common. The territorial call, also given by opponents during fights, is a long ''preet'' with an upward inflection. The alarm call is a loud trilling whistle. Common calls, thought to be contact call Contact calls are seemingly haphazard sounds made by many social animals (such as a chicken's cluck). Contact calls are unlike other calls (such as alarm calls) in that they are not usually widely used, conspicuous calls, but rather short exclamatio ...
s, are animated two-note calls variously described as '', '', ''cr-rook, cr-rook'' or ''put-put, put-put''.
Distribution and habitat
Habitat
Across its range, the yellow-faced honeyeater is found in a variety of habitats—in open sclerophyll
Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct ...
forests from coastal dunes to high-altitude subalpine areas, and often in riparian
A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...
woodlands. It most commonly dwells in open forests dominated by spotted gum (''Corymbia maculata
''Corymbia maculata'', commonly known as spotted gum, is a species of medium-sized to tall tree that is endemic to eastern Australia. It has smooth, mottled bark, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds usually in groups of three, whit ...
'') with ironbark
Ironbark is a common name of a number of species in three taxonomic groups within the genus ''Eucalyptus'' that have dark, deeply furrowed bark.
Instead of being shed annually as in many of the other species of ''Eucalyptus'', the dead bark accum ...
s and stringybarks, such as narrow-leaved ironbark (''Eucalyptus crebra
''Eucalyptus crebra'', commonly known as the narrow-leaved ironbark, narrow-leaved red ironbark or simply ironbark, and as muggago in the indigenous Dharawal language, is a species of small to medium-sized tree endemic to eastern Australia. It ha ...
'') and silver-leaved ironbark ( ''E. melanophloia''), with a light, shrubby understorey
In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but abo ...
, and less often in dry, open forests and woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...
s dominated by '' Angophora'', '' Acacia'', ''Banksia
''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and fruiting "cones" and heads. ''Banksias'' range ...
'', ''Casuarina
''Casuarina'' is a genus of 17 tree species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and eastern Africa. It was once treated as the sole genus in the fa ...
'' or '' Callitris'', or in high-altitude, tall, open forests of alpine ash (''Eucalyptus delegatensis
''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...
'') and woodlands dominated by snow gum ('' E. pauciflora'') or white box ('' E. albens''). It has been recorded in coastal heath
A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler a ...
when banksias are blooming, and among flowering mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...
s. It occupies areas infested with weeds, such as Scotch broom (''Cytisus scoparius
''Cytisus scoparius'' ( syn. ''Sarothamnus scoparius''), the common broom or Scotch broom, is a deciduous leguminous shrub native to western and central Europe. In Britain and Ireland, the standard name is broom; this name is also used for oth ...
'') and blackberries
The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family (biology), family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus' ...
, and in developed areas including orchards, parks and gardens, where it feeds on cultivated fruit and flowers. It can be found in forests regenerating after fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...
or logging, though it is more common in mature forests. Where it is found in woodland, it is usually woodland near forest or with an understory
In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but abo ...
of sclerophyll plants.
Range
The yellow-faced honeyeater ranges across a broad arc generally along the coastline from near Cooktown
Cooktown is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. Cooktown is at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repai ...
in Far North Queensland, and between a line from Charters Towers
Charters Towers is a rural town in the Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It is by road south-west from Townsville on the Flinders Highway. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the town boomed as the rich gold deposits unde ...
south to Albury
Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...
and the coast, and then west to the Fleurieu Peninsula
The Fleurieu Peninsula () is a peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia located south of the state capital of Adelaide.
History
Before British colonisation of South Australia, the western side of the peninsula was occupied by the ...
and the Mount Lofty Ranges
The Mount Lofty Ranges are a range of mountains in the Australian state of South Australia which for a small part of its length borders the east of Adelaide. The part of the range in the vicinity of Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and ...
in South Australia. Population densities have been recorded from 0.01 birds per hectare (2.5 acres) near Armidale
Armidale is a city in the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. Armidale had a population of 24,504 as of June 2018. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. It is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands region. I ...
in New South Wales to 7.8 birds per hectare at Tarnagulla, Victoria
Tarnagulla is a gold mining town in central Victoria, Australia. The town is in the Shire of Loddon local government area, north west of the state capital, Melbourne. At the , Tarnagulla had a population of 304. By 2016, the population was 1 ...
. During the winter months of June and July, numbers are generally lower in Victoria and higher in Queensland, following their northward migration.
Migration
There are resident populations of the yellow-faced honeyeater throughout its range, but it is for the most part a season
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...
al, latitudinal, daytime migrant. During the autumn (March to May), it migrates north along the highlands and coastal fringe of eastern Australia to southern Queensland, to return in the spring (August to October) of the same year. The birds commonly move in flocks of 10 to 100 birds, but occasionally in larger groups of 1,000 or more. The groups can include other species, such as the white-naped honeyeater, fuscous honeyeater
The fuscous honeyeater (''Ptilotula fusca'') is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae.
It is endemic to eastern Australia.
The fuscous honeyeater is dull grey-brown to olive-brown above with buffy-grey underparts. The bill is black and th ...
, noisy friarbird, and silvereye
The silvereye or wax-eye (''Zosterops lateralis'') is a very small omnivorous passerine bird of the south-west Pacific. In Australia and New Zealand its common name is sometimes white-eye, but this name is more commonly used to refer to all membe ...
. They move in successive flocks at a rate of up to several thousand birds an hour. Over 100,000 birds were recorded passing Hastings Point in New South Wales over the course of a single day in May 1965. The species is able to detect geomagnetic fields, and uses them to navigate while migrating. Experiments, where the vertical component of the magnetic field was reversed, indicate that the magnetic compass of the yellow-faced honeyeater is based on the inclination of the field lines and not on polarity, meaning they distinguish between the direction of the equator and the South Pole, rather than north and south. Their flight is in one general direction, but is not in a straight line, as the flocks stay in vegetated areas, negotiate gaps in the mountain ranges, and detour around cities.
The migration of many birds in Australia, including honeyeaters, has generally been described as occurring mainly in response to external environmental stimuli, such as food availability or an influx of water. The yellow-faced honeyeater has been found to have a broad range of characteristics that are more often associated with Northern Hemisphere migrants. These are an annual cycle of migratory restlessness, seasonally appropriate orientation based on magnetic, solar and polarised light cues, and a migration program based on the magnetic inclination compass.
Behaviour
The yellow-faced honeyeater is usually seen singly, in pairs or in small family groups, when not migrating. They forage as individuals, as pairs or as small groups of up to ten birds, and during migration in larger groups. They sometimes feed in large, mixed-species, foraging flocks, composed predominately of insectivorous birds.
Feeding
Comparatively short-billed for a honeyeater, the yellow-faced honeyeater is thought to have adapted to a mixed diet. Its diet consists of nectar, pollen, fruit, seeds, honeydew, and insects. It is arboreal, foraging primarily among the foliage and flowers of trees, shrubs, and mistletoes, less often on branches and tree-trunk, and rarely on the ground. Yellow-faced honeyeaters feed on nectar around 40% of the time, and on insects around 60% of the time. The yellow-faced honeyeater feeds on insects by gleaning
Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. It is a practice described in the Hebrew Bible that became a legall ...
, sallying, catching in flight, or probing in bark crevices. The insects eaten are primarily Diptera (flies, mosquitoes, maggots, gnats, and midges), beetle
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
s, and spider
Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...
s. A study of the pollen on the bills and foreheads of captured birds found that 70% carried pollen from silver banksia (''Banksia marginata
''Banksia marginata'', commonly known as the silver banksia, is a species of tree or woody shrub in the plant genus ''Banksia'' found throughout much of southeastern Australia. It ranges from the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia to north of Arm ...
''), 61% from heath-leaved banksia (''Banksia ericifolia
''Banksia ericifolia'', the heath-leaved banksia, or lantern banksia, is a species of woody shrub of the family Proteaceae native to Australia. It grows in two separate regions of Central and Northern New South Wales east of the Great Dividing ...
''), and 22% carried pollen from other plants in the area including fern-leaved banksia (''Banksia oblongifolia
''Banksia oblongifolia'', commonly known as the fern-leaved, dwarf or rusty banksia, is a species in the plant genus ''Banksia''. Found along the eastern coast of Australia from Wollongong, New South Wales in the south to Rockhampton, Queensland ...
''), mountain devil ('' Lambertia formosa''), and green spider-flower (''Grevillea mucronulata
''Grevillea mucronulata'', also known as green spider flower or green grevillea, is a species of flowering plant of the family Proteaceae and is endemic to New South Wales in Australia. Described by Robert Brown in 1810, it is found in open scl ...
'').
In April and May, before the autumn migration, the yellow-faced honeyeater increases its nectar consumption, which increases its body mass. The average body mass in late autumn of is 13% higher than the average recorded between January and April, and the yellow-faced honeyeater begins the migration with healthy fat reserves.
Breeding
The yellow-faced honeyeater breeds in monogamous pairs in a breeding season that extends from July to March, with migrating birds nesting later than sedentary birds. They nest solitarily in all-purpose territories
A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal.
In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
that both parents defend against conspecifics and other species including thornbills, spinebills and silvereyes, although the male is involved in more aggressive interactions than the female. Within a breeding season, females lay two or three clutches of eggs, re-nesting with the same partner in the same territory. Banded birds have been identified in the same territory for periods of up to five years.
The nest is built in the understorey shrubs, relatively close to the ground. Nests have been recorded in prickly coprosma (''Coprosma quadrifida
''Coprosma quadrifida'' is a dioecious shrub of the family Rubiaceae native to southeastern Australia. First described as ''Canthium quadrifidum'' by Labillardiere, it was given its current name by B. L. Robinson in 1910. Typically found at damp ...
''), '' Cassinia'', tea-trees ('' Melaleuca''), eucalypt
Eucalypt is a descriptive name for woody plants with capsule fruiting bodies belonging to seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australasia:
''Eucalyptus'', ''Corymbia'', ''Angophora'', '' Stockwellia'', ''Allosyn ...
s and acacias, as well as in garden shrubs. The nest is a fragile, cup-shaped structure, swollen at the sides and narrower at the rim. The female builds the nest, but is often accompanied by the male as she gathers nesting material. Most nests are built of greenish material, which varies with the location; in coastal areas, grass is the primary material; in mountain forests, the nest is often covered with moss. One bird was recorded repeatedly flying between the nest and a koala
The koala or, inaccurately, koala bear (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae and its closest living relatives are the w ...
away and plucking the long hair near its ears to incorporate in the nest. The nests are very fine, with the eggs visible through the gauze-like walls, and they sometimes fall apart. They have been known to disintegrate with eggs and nestlings falling through the bottom.
The female undertakes the incubation alone. Eggs are oval, approximately long and wide, and pinkish white in colour with spots and blotches of dark reddish-brown. The clutch size varies from one to three eggs, and eggs take around two weeks to hatch. Upon hatching, both parents feed the nestlings and remove faecal pellets. The chicks fledge after thirteen days, and leave the parental territory after a further two weeks. The success rate can be as low as 16% of eggs developing into fledged young, with nest failure, hot weather, heavy rain, human activity (including fungicide spraying and nest damage), egg destruction by brood parasites, and predation
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
by brown snakes Brown snake may refer to:
* species of the genus ''Pseudonaja'', highly venomous snakes native to Australia
* species of the genus '' Rhadinaea'', the graceful brown snakes, snakes endemic to North America and Central America
* species of the genus ...
, cats, and currawong
Currawongs are three species of medium-sized passerine birds belonging to the genus ''Strepera'' in the family Artamidae native to Australia. These are the grey currawong (''Strepera versicolor''), pied currawong (''S. graculina''), and black ...
s, all recorded as contributing to brood failure. Among the species that parasitize the nests of yellow-faced honeyeaters are fan-tailed cuckoo
The fan-tailed cuckoo (''Cacomantis flabelliformis'') is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae.
It is found in Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.
Taxonomy
Six subspecies have been reco ...
s, brush cuckoo
The brush cuckoo (''Cacomantis variolosus'') is a member of the cuckoo family.
The brush cuckoo is native to Malesia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and northern and eastern Australia. It is a grey-brown bird with a buff breast. Its call is a ...
s, pallid cuckoos, shining bronze-cuckoo
The shining bronze cuckoo (''Chrysococcyx lucidus'') is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae, found in Australia, Indonesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. It was previously also known as ''Ch ...
s, and Horsfield's bronze-cuckoos. The yellow-faced honeyeater promptly nests again after both successful and failed breeding attempts.
A paternity analysis of yellow-faced honeyeater nestlings found that 10 of 18 nestlings were fathered by the male of the nesting pair, with clear evidence for extra-pair paternity in the case of the remaining 44%. This conflicts with the usual pattern, where genetic monogamy
Monogamy ( ) is a form of dyadic relationship in which an individual has only one partner during their lifetime. Alternately, only one partner at any one time (serial monogamy) — as compared to the various forms of non-monogamy (e.g., polyg ...
is linked to the characteristics of strong social pairing, essential paternal contributions to brood-rearing, and to sexual monomorphism
In the context of abstract algebra or universal algebra, a monomorphism is an injective homomorphism. A monomorphism from to is often denoted with the notation X\hookrightarrow Y.
In the more general setting of category theory, a monomorphism ...
; characteristics that are exhibited by the yellow honeyeater
The yellow honeyeater (''Stomiopera flava'') is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae.
It is endemic to Australia.
Overview
Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and subtropical or tropical mangrove fore ...
, for example.
Conservation status
Several ectoparasites
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson ha ...
, which can affect survival and reproductive fitness, have been found on the yellow-faced honeyeater: the mites, ''Ptilonyssus meliphagae'' and ''P. thymanzae'', and ''Ixodes
''Ixodes'' is a genus of hard-bodied ticks (family Ixodidae). It includes important disease vectors of animals and humans ( tick-borne disease), and some species (notably '' Ixodes holocyclus'') inject toxins that can cause paralysis. Som ...
'' species ticks.
In general, honeyeaters require extensive corridors of mature trees along their migratory routes, and flowering woodlands for nesting, so they are vulnerable to the effects of land-clearing, grazing and weed infestation. The woodland habitat they prefer is considered an endangered ecological community. As it is common and widespread, the yellow-faced honeyeater is considered by the IUCN to be of least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
for conservation. A field experiment to determine whether yellow-faced honeyeater nests were less successful in fragmented habitats found that nests closer to forest margins actually had a higher success rate than those deeper in the forest. However, the yellow-faced honeyeater tends to nest away from the edge of forest remnants; experiments with natural and artificial nests at varying distances from the open areas showed no increase in the number of avian predators at the forest edge. The results of the field experiment did not support the "ecological trap
Ecological traps are scenarios in which rapid environmental change leads organisms to prefer to settle in poor-quality habitats.
The concept stems from the idea that organisms that are actively selecting habitat must rely on environmental cues to h ...
" and "predator influx" theories, and contribute to a belief that fragmented habitats may not be as problematic as previously thought. In some areas, the species is considered a pest because of its intrusion into orchards and urban gardens, where it damages fruit.
References
Bibliography
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External links
Photos, audio and video of yellow-faced honeyeater
from Cornell Lab of Ornithology
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuar ...
's Macaulay Library
Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the yellow-faced honeyeater
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{{Featured article
yellow-faced honeyeater
Birds of Queensland
Birds of New South Wales
Birds of South Australia
Birds of Victoria (Australia)
Endemic birds of Australia
yellow-faced honeyeater
Taxa named by John Latham (ornithologist)