Yellow-plumed honeyeater
{{Short description|Species of bird}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}
{{Use Australian English|date=July 2022}}
{{speciesbox
| name = Yellow-plumed honeyeater
| image = Yellow-plumed Honeyeater - Patchewollock.jpg
| status = LC
| status_system = IUCN3.1
| genus = Ptilotula
| species = ornata
| authority = (Gould, 1838)
| synonyms = Lichenostomus ornatus}}
The yellow-plumed honeyeater (Ptilotula ornata) is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae. It is endemic to Australia, where it inhabits temperate forests and Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation.
The yellow-plumed honeyeater was previously placed in the genus Lichenostomus, but was moved to Ptilotula after a molecular phylogenetic analysis, published in 2011, showed that the original genus was polyphyletic.{{cite journal | last1=Nyári | first1=Á.S. | last2=Joseph | first2=L. | year= 2011 |title= Systematic dismantlement of Lichenostomus improves the basis for understanding relationships within the honeyeaters (Meliphagidae) and historical development of Australo–Papuan bird communities |journal= Emu | volume= 111 | issue=3 | pages=202–211 |doi=10.1071/mu10047| s2cid=85333285 }}{{cite web| editor1-last=Gill | editor1-first=Frank | editor2-last=Donsker | editor2-first=David | title=Honeyeaters | work= World Bird List Version 6.1 | url= http://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/honeyeaters/ | publisher=International Ornithologists' Union| access-date= 28 January 2016 }}
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 an 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.
Similar species include purple-gaped honeyeater,Tzaros, C. (2021) Wildlife of the Box-Ironbark Country. 2nd Edition, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, Victoria, {{ISBN|9781486313150}} grey-fronted honeyeater{{cite web |url=https://www.birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/yellow-plumed-honeyeater |title=Yellow-plumed Honeyeater |work=Birdlife Australia | access-date = 20 July 2022}} and fuscous honeyeater.
=Call=
The song is a loud, clear, three-note chier wit chier, often performed before dawn, and by males during display flight.Menkhorst, P., Rogers, D., Clarke, R., Davies, J., Marsack, P., Franklin, K. (2019) The Australian Bird Guide: Revised Edition, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, Victoria, {{ISBN|9781486311934}}
Distribution
Ecology and behaviour
File:Yellow-plumed Honeyeater (Ptilotula ornata) (8079669037).jpg
The main habitat type for yellow-plumed honeyeater is mallee. They occupy a broader range of habitat in the west of their range, including dry eucalypt woodland and eucalypt open-forest. They occasionally occur outside their usual habitat, such as in Acacia and Callitris woodland, and seasonally in flowering red ironbark forest, flowering grey box-yellow box woodland.
They occur in sedentary, colonial groups, which may relocate in response to harsh conditions. They are noisy and conspicuous, and will jointly defend nesting or feeding territories, by engaging in communal wing quivering displays.
=Diet=
Yellow-plumed honeyeaters are mainly insectivorous, foraging actively mainly in outer and upper foliage, branches and trunks of eucalypts, and taking insects on the wing by hawking. They also feed opportunistically on nectar, including from various mallee eucalypts, yellow gum, grey box, red ironbark, and box mistletoe.
=Reproduction=
Yellow-plumed honeyeaters build an open, cup-shaped nest suspended by the rim from foliage or from a thin fork of mallee eucalypts and other small shrubs. Nests are made from wool, green grass and spider webs, and lined with wool, grasses, plant-down and brightly-coloured feathers. Both parents feed the young, sometimes with the assistance of helpers.
Yellow-plumed honeyeater nests are parasitised by fan-tailed cuckoos, pallid cuckoos, Horsfield's bronze-cuckoos and shining bronze-cuckoos.
Conservation actions
=Conservation status=
The species is listed under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as a species of Least Concern.
=Protected areas=
The yellow-plumed honeyeater occurs in several protected areas, including:
- New South Wales
: * Pulletop Nature Reserve{{cite book|date=December 2005|title=Pulletop Nature Reserve: Plan of management |url=https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/-/media/OEH/Corporate-Site/Documents/Parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/Parks-plans-of-management/pulletop-nature-reserve-plan-of-management-050676.pdf|type=PDF|publisher=Government of New South Wales|access-date=16 December 2023|isbn=1-74122-081-5}}
- South Australia
: * Gluepot Reserve{{cite web|work=Gluepot Reserve|date=April 2016|title=Birdlife Gluepot Reserve Bird List - April 2016 (Alphabetic Order) |url=https://www.gluepot.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Birdlist-April-2016-Alphabetic.pdf|type=PDF|publisher=Birdlife Australia|access-date=20 July 2022}}
- Victoria
: * Greater Bendigo National Park
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commonscat|Ptilotula ornata}}
- [https://ebird.org/species/yephon1/ Photos, audio and video of yellow-plumed honeyeater] from Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library
- [http://www.graemechapman.com.au/library/viewphotos.php?c=284 Recording of yellow-plumed honeyeater] from Graeme Chapman's sound library
{{Taxonbar|from=Q27075260}}
Category:Birds of South Australia