Yellow-faced Honeyeater

Identification

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, 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 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 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, 0.8 g (0.03 oz) heavier); and in the field there are no visible differences between the subspecies. The yellow-faced honeyeater averages 15–17.5 centimetres (5.9–6.9 in) in length, with a wingspan of 21.5–26 cm (8.5–10.2 in), and a weight of 12.5–20.5 grams (0.44–0.72 oz), with an average of 17 g (0.60 oz)).<p>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 calls, are animated two-note calls variously described as terric, terric, cr-rook, cr-rook or put-put, put-put.

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 Pierre Vieillot described it as Melithreptus gilvicapillus in 1817, and English zoologist George Robert Gray as Ptilotis trivirgata in 1869. The specific name chrysops is derived from the Ancient Greek words chrysos meaning 'gold' and prosopo meaning 'face', in reference to the stripe of yellow feathers.<p>The yellow-faced honeyeater was classified in the genera Meliphaga and then Lichenostomus until 2011. Delineating the latter genus had been systematically contentious, and evaluations of relationships among honeyeaters in the genus, using dense taxon and nucleotide 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. 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.<p>There are three subspecies of the yellow-faced honeyeater, two of which were described by Gregory Mathews in 1912. There are only very slight differences between the nominate race and C. c. samueli found in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia, and C. c. barroni from the Clarke Range and the Atherton Tableland in Queensland. The latter race is described as "poorly differentiated" and "possibly not worthy of recognition" by the Handbook of the Birds of the World.<p>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 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.

Scientific name

Caligavis chrysops

Authority

(Latham, 1801)

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Meliphagidae

Genus

Caligavis

Range and habitat

Across its range, the yellow-faced honeyeater is found in a variety of habitats—in open sclerophyll forests from coastal dunes to high-altitude subalpine areas, and often in riparian woodlands. It most commonly dwells in open forests dominated by spotted gum (Corymbia maculata) with ironbarks and stringybarks, such as narrow-leaved ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra) and silver-leaved ironbark (E. melanophloia), with a light, shrubby understorey, and less often in dry, open forests and woodlands dominated by Angophora, Acacia, Banksia, Casuarina or Callitris, or in high-altitude, tall, open forests of alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) and woodlands dominated by snow gum (E. pauciflora) or white box (E. albens). It has been recorded in coastal heath when banksias are blooming, and among flowering mangroves. It occupies areas infested with weeds, such as Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) and blackberries, 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 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 of sclerophyll plants.<p>The yellow-faced honeyeater ranges across a broad arc generally along the coastline from near Cooktown in Far North Queensland, and between a line from Charters Towers south to Albury and the coast, and then west to the Fleurieu Peninsula and the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia. Population densities have been recorded from 0.01 birds per hectare (2.5 acres) near Armidale in New South Wales to 7.8 birds per hectare at Tarnagulla, Victoria. During the winter months of June and July, numbers are generally lower in Victoria and higher in Queensland, following their northward migration.<p>There are resident populations of the yellow-faced honeyeater throughout its range, but it is for the most part a seasonal, 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, noisy friarbird, and silvereye. 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.<p>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.

Migration

Complete migrants

Behavior

Migration pattern: Complete migrants.

Conservation

Population trend: declining.

Population trend

declining