Saving the REGENT HONEYEATER A CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT GUIDE AUSTRALIA PRODUCED BY: RECOMMENDED CITATION: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: BirdLife Australia Ingwersen, D., Roderick, M., and Mowat, This project is jointly funded through Suite 2-05 E. (2019). 'Saving the Regent Honeyeater: Local Land Services and the Australian 60 Leicester Street A Conservation and Management Guide'. Government’s National Landcare Program. Carlton Vic 3053 BirdLife Australia, Melbourne. BirdLife Australia would like to thank Leith Hawkins, Martin Dillon and Iestyn Taylor for Phone (03) 9347 0757 their support in delivering the booklet. Website www.birdlife.org.au DISCLAIMERS: Cover photographs – Dean Ingwersen. © BirdLife Australia. This report is Every effort has been undertaken to ensure All botanical line drawings copyright. Apart from any fair dealings that the information presented within this © Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust for the purposes of private study, research, publication is accurate. BirdLife Australia criticism, or review as permitted under the does not guarantee that the publication Image on page 3: John Gould, National Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced, is without flaw of any kind and therefore Library of Australia, RB Nef F4773 stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, disclaims all liability for any error, loss in any form or by means, electronic, or other consequence that may arise All other photographs by mechanical, photocopying, recording, or from relying on any information in this Dean Ingwersen, Mick Roderick, otherwise without prior written permission. publication. Allan Richardson, Glen Johnson, Enquiries to BirdLife Australia. 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CONTENTS This is not only one of the handsomest Introduction ................................ 2 What is being done to help of the Honey-eaters but is also one of the most beautiful birds inhabiting Australia, the Regent Honeyeater? ...............16 Where Does the the strongly contrasted tints of its black and The Regent Honeyeater Recovery Team yellow plumage rendering it a most conspicuous Regent Honeyeater Occur? ............ 3 and pleasing object, particularly during flight. and Recovery Plan ...................................16 I met with it in great abundance among the Range and Population Size .........................3 Habitat Restoration..................................16 brushes of New South Wales…I have occasionally Conservation Status ..................................4 seen flocks of from fifty to a hundred in numbers, From Little Things, Big Things Grow ..........17 passing from tree to tree as if engaged in a The Decline Seen In One Lifetime ...............4 Habitat Protection ...................................18 partial migration from one part of the country to another, or in search of a more abundant Ecology ...................................... 5 Habitat Management ...............................19 supply of food. Captive Breeding and Release ..................20 Diet and Foraging ......................................5 John Gould, Birds of Australia (1865) True Friends Helping Breeding and Life Cycle .............................6 Regent Honeyeaters ................................23 Movement .................................................6 Noisy Miner Control .................................24 Habitat Types .............................. 7 Nest Interventions ...................................26 Box-Ironbark Woodland ..............................7 Community Engagement ..........................27 Grassy White Box-Yellow Box Woodland .....7 Why Conserve the Spotted Gum Forest ...................................7 Regent Honeyeater? ....................28 Swamp Mahogany Forest ...........................8 River Sheoak Forest ...................................8 Research and Monitoring .............29 Other habitat .............................................8 Biannual Regent Honeyeater Searches ......29 Mugga Ironbark .........................................9 National Regent Honeyeater White Box ..................................................9 Monitoring Program (NRHMP) ..................29 Yellow Box ................................................9 Colour Banding and Genetics ...................30 Broad-leaved Ironbark ..............................10 Radio and Satellite Tracking .....................31 Spotted Gum ...........................................10 Mistletoe Dieback ....................................31 Swamp Mahogany ...................................10 Needle-leaf Mistletoe ..............................11 How Can You Help? .....................32 Box Mistletoe ..........................................11 Report Sightings ......................................32 Long-flowered Mistletoe ..........................11 Volunteering Opportunities ......................32 For Landholders ......................................32 Identification of Regent Honeyeaters ....................12 Further Reading ..........................32 Appearance .............................................12 Acknowledgements .....................33 Behaviour ................................................12 Common Misidentifications .....................13 Threats .....................................14 Habitat Loss and Fragmentation...............14 Habitat Degradation.................................14 Competition ............................................14 Nest Predation ........................................15 Small Population Size ..............................15 Climate Change .......................................15 1 INTRODUCTION The Regent Honeyeater is a striking black and yellow bird which is endemic to mainland south-eastern Australia. Its scientific name – Anthochaera phrygia – means ‘embroidered flower-fancier’, and its beautifully patterned plumage certainly lives up to this name. This booklet gives an overview of the life history and conservation status of this highly endangered bird and explains the threats that have caused the decline in the range and population of the species. It also outlines the management and recovery actions that are being undertaken and highlights the organisations and some of the individuals that are involved in trying to save the bird from extinction. DID YOU KNOW? The Regent Honeyeater has been known by various different names in the past, including ‘Warty-faced Honeyeater’, ‘Turkey-bird’, ‘Mock Regent’, ‘Flying Coachman’ and ‘Embroidered Honeyeater’. 2 The Capertee Valley, and nearby areas of the Blue Mountains, are one of the most important remaining areas for the Regent Honeyeater. WHERE DOES THE REGENT HONEYEATER OCCUR? Range and Population Size When Europeans first arrived in Australia, Regent Honeyeaters were during 1940s, become a vagrant during the 1950s, and only three records widespread across the south-east of the country, though largely confined exist in the 1970s. They’ve not been recorded in South Australia since then. to a broad ‘band’ within about 300 km of the coast. The range extended The earliest accounts of Regent Honeyeaters from the mid-1800s include from around the Rockhampton region of Qld, through NSW, the ACT and observations describing them as being seen in ‘great’ or ‘immense’ Victoria all the way to Adelaide in South Australia. In fact, John Gould numbers. As recently as the early 1900s, Regent Honeyeaters were at times found two pairs in a large gum tree in the middle of Adelaide as he travelled the most common honeyeater species in an area. Although no formal around the country collecting and observing birds in the mid-1800s. assessments of population size were ever formulated back then, we can In Queensland, the earliest historical record of Regent Honeyeaters came glean insights into how plentiful they may have been from accounts written from near Chinchilla in 1885, an unusually 'inland' sighting. The species by early naturalists (and lament the current situation!). Thomas Austin was recorded at locations like Duaringa and Byfield in the Rockhamption published in the journal Emu in 1907 about the birds of the Talbragar River region until the 1940s or so, with a single vagrant bird recorded about near Cobbora, NSW, and wrote this of Regent Honeyeaters: 200km north near Mackay in 1963. Since then, small numbers of Regent ‘About on average this handsome Honey-eater comes in October one year in Honeyeaters have been sporadically recorded either in the broad Brisbane three; but this year it came in very large flocks about the end of March, and region, or inland around Warwick and Durikai. A single bird seen at Tin Can appears to be going to winter with us’ Bay in 2017 was the northernmost record since the Mackay