GEELONG NATURALIST Vol. 37 No. 1 
BIRD OF THE MONTH 
... Valda Dedman 
New Holland Honeyeater 
Scientific Name 
Phylidonyris novaehollandiae 
Description 
Black and white streaked small 
honeyeater with bold yellow wing 
panels. White eye, rear eyebrow and 
facial tufts. Immature browner. 
Length 17-19 cm. 
Voice High-pitched, sharp fjikk and 
tseee. Alarm chatter. 
Food Nectar, insects. 
Habitat Forests, woodlands, with 
shrubby understorey, heathlands, 
parks, gardens. 
Range SE and SW coastal area, 
Tasmania. 
Geelong Common in bushland, 
ubiquitous in suburbs. Breeds. 
Nest Rough, small cup lined with soft 
material. Low in dense foliage. 
Eggs 2-3, buff-white, spotted and 
blotched chestnut-brown. 
Similar Species  White-cheeked 
Honeyeater (much larger white cheek 
patch, brown eye). 
tot ite 
Rob Ganly took up my challenge to find 
a bird logo for Geelong and nominated 
the New Holland Honeyeater. Fifty 
years ago Percy Wood was thinking 
along the same lines: 
When you make an intimate 
acquaintance of any city you soon 
become aware of some bird which by its 
predominance fastens itself in the mind 
as belonging particularly to that locality, 
In this manner Melboume and ‘greenie’ 
[White-plumed Honeyeater] are always 
associated. 
Sydney has its companion bird in the 
White-eared Honeyeater, and Geelong 
May 2001 
has its predominating and associate 
bird in the species now being dealt 
with. The White-bearded [New 
Holland] Honeyeater, our 
commonest bird, is in every park and 
private garden, ever seeking the 
nectar which is richly provided in so 
many of our beautiful flowers and 
flowering trees and shrubs. 
The New Holland Honeyeater is a 
common bird within its range. It was 
one of the first Australian birds to be 
recorded, in the diary of W. W. Ellis, 
assistant surgeon to Cook's third 
voyage. It was first called the New 
Holland Creeper because of its ability 
to hang upside down on fine stems 
whilst feeding. It was painted in 1788 
by John White, chief surgeon with 
the First Fleet. /t is about the size of 
a nightingale, he wrote. 
In 1848 John Gould said that this 
honeyeater was one of the most 
abundant and familiar birds 
inhabiting the colonies of New South 
Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and 
South Australia; all the gardens of 
the settlers are visited by it, and 
among their shrubs and flowering 
plants it annually breeds. It has a 
loud, shrill, liquid, although 
monotonous note. Its food, which 
consists of the pollen and juices of 
flowers, is procured while clinging 
and creeping among them in every 
variety of positions. It usually rears 
two or three broods during the course 
of the season ... one of the nests in 
my collection was taken from a row of 
peas in the kitchen garden of the 
Government House in Sydney. 
Belcher in 1914 claimed that up until 
1890 and probably later, this bird was 
only a winter visitor to Geelong. 
| remember a great influx of them in 
the month of May, 1889, when a 
number of tall aloes blossomed and 
the clusters of flowers at the end of 
the lateral branches were centres of 
attraction for hundreds of 
Honeyeaters from the little Spinebill 
to the great grey Wattlebird. But 
these all returned to the forests with 
the advent of spring, and | heard of 
no nests of the present species until 
about 1893... Now it must be almost 
as common as the Greenie, and 
breeds in numbers every year in the 
Park. ... One does not see this bird in 
absolutely plain country, but it 
abounds wherever there is a patch, 
however restricted in area, of 
bushland or flowering shrubs, 
especially if surrounded by hedges of 
kangaroo-acacia (A. armata) [now A. 
paradoxa], for in these it prefers to 
make its nest. 
He went on to say that August was 
the chief breeding month and he had 
9 
only ever seen a clutch of three eggs, 
two being the norm. They may breed 
much later if the season dictates. 
Belcher found a nest with fresh eggs on 
March 31st and had heard of young 
birds in May. 
The nest is made of twigs, stems and 
grass, and lined with plant down, dead 
flowers or wool. A nest, made outside Lil 
Sherwood's window, contained fleece 
she had thoughtfully provided in a 
nearby tree and Lil's own silver hairs. 
These honeyeaters are both nectar and 
insect eaters. Insects form a large part 
of their diet even outside of the breeding 
season and they will come to the ground 
in search of them. When catching 
insects on the wing, a bird can hold 
several in its bill at one time before 
flying back to the nest. 
The New Holland Honeyeater times its 
nesting to coincide with the peak 
flowering of a favourite plant, but also 
makes use of other sugary sources of 
carbohydrate. David Paton, in a 1970s 
study carried out in the Botanic Gardens 
at Cranbourne, discovered that manna 
became the principal source of 
carbohydrate for New Holland 
Honeyeaters in summer and autumn 
when nectar was scarce. They spent 
half their daylight hours feeding, and 
95% of this time was spent collecting 
manna that was also given to their 
young. They vigorously defended 
feeding territories from other New 
Hollands and from up to 14 more 
species which were also feeding on 
manna. At Golton Vale, near Stawell, 
however, the birds fed on honeydew 
excreted from psyllid insects (winter) or 
scale insects (summer and autumn). 
The New Holland Honeyeater is 
sometimes called the watchdog of the 
bush because it is often the first bird to 
raise the alarm at intruders. It flies to a 
vantage point, watches the intruder and 
gives a chatter which is relayed through 
the bush by others until eventually all 
the bush becomes quiet . Relatively 
tame in our gardens, it is still somewhat 
wary, though it appears bold and noisy, 
scolding loudly at intrusive cats and 
even keeping Wattlebirds at bay to 
some extent. Percy Wood said it was 
best to watch them through a window. 
Up to a dozen at a time may frequent a 
bird bath. They are a joy to behold. 
Full of life, always around, ‘brightly 
coloured, acrobatic, prepared to alert 
others to danger and to have something 
to say, a bit of an opportunist — should 
we adopt the New Holland Honeyeater 
as Geelong’s bird, a symbol of what we 
would wish our city to be? As a start, 
could it not be the GFNC bird group 
logo? 
