Blue-faced Honeyeater

Identification

A large honeyeater ranging from 26 to 32 cm (10 to 12.5 in) and averaging 29.5 cm (11.6 in) in length. The adult blue-faced honeyeater has a wingspan of 44 cm (17.5 in) and weighs around 105 g (3.7 oz). In general shape, it has broad wings with rounded tips and a medium squarish tail. The sturdy, slightly downcurved bill is shorter than the skull, and measures 3 to 3.5 cm (1.2 to 1.4 in) in length. It is easily recognised by the bare blue skin around its eyes. The head and throat are otherwise predominantly blackish with a white stripe around the nape and another from the cheek. The upperparts, including mantle, back and wings, are a golden-olive colour, and the margins of the primary and secondary coverts a darker olive-brown, while the underparts are white. Juveniles that have just fledged have grey head, chin, and central parts of their breasts, with brown upperparts, and otherwise white underparts. After their next moult, they more closely resemble adults and have similar plumage, but are distinguished by their facial patches. The bare facial skin of birds just fledged is yellow, sometimes with a small patch of blue in front of the eyes, while the skin of birds six months and older has usually become more greenish, and turns darker blue beneath the eye, before assuming the adult blue facial patch by around 16 months of age. The blue-faced honeyeater begins its moult in October or November, starting with its primary flight feathers, replacing them by February. It replaces its body feathers anywhere from December to June, and tail feathers between December and July. 422 blue-faced honeyeaters have been banded between 1953 and 1997 to monitor movements and longevity. Of these, 109 were eventually recovered, 107 of which were within 10 km (6.2 mi) of their point of banding. The record for longevity was a bird banded in May 1990 in Kingaroy in central Queensland, which was found dead on a road after 8 years and 3.5 months in September 1998, around 2 km (1.2 mi) away.<p>The blue-faced honeyeater produces a variety of calls, including a piping call around half an hour before dawn, variously described as ki-owt, woik, queet, peet, or weet. Through the day, it makes squeaking noises while flying, and harsh squawks when mobbing. Its calls have been likened to those of the yellow-throated miner (Manorina flavigula), but are deeper. Blue-faced honeyeaters make a soft chirping around nestlings and family members.<p>A distinctive bird, the blue-faced honeyeater differs in coloration from the duller-plumaged friarbirds, miners and wattlebirds, and it is much larger than the similarly coloured Melithreptus honeyeaters. Subspecies albipennis, with its white wing-patch, has been likened to a khaki-backed butcherbird in flight.

Taxonomy

The blue-faced honeyeater was first described by ornithologist John Latham in his 1801 work, Supplementum Indicis Ornithologici, sive Systematis Ornithologiae. However, he described it as three separate species, seemingly not knowing it was the same bird in each case: the blue-eared grackle (Gracula cyanotis), the blue-cheeked bee-eater (Merops cyanops), and the blue-cheeked thrush (Turdus cyanous). It was as the blue-cheeked bee-eater that it was painted between 1788 and 1797 by Thomas Watling, one of a group known collectively as the Port Jackson Painter. <p>It was reclassified in the genus Entomyzon, which was erected by William Swainson in 1825. He observed that the "Blue-faced Grakle" was the only insectivorous member of the genus, and posited that it was a link between the smaller honeyeaters and the riflebirds of the genus Ptiloris. The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek ento-/εντο- 'inside' and myzein/μυζειν 'to drink' or 'suck'. The specific epithet, cyanotis, means 'blue-eared', and combines cyano-/κυανο 'blue' with otis (a Latinised form of ωτος, the Greek genitive of ous/ους) 'ear'. Swainson spelt it Entomiza in an 1837 publication, and George Gray wrote Entomyza in 1840.<p>The blue-faced honeyeater is generally held to be the only member of the genus, although its plumage suggests an affinity with honeyeaters of the genus Melithreptus. It has been classified in that genus by Glen Storr, although others felt it more closely related to wattlebirds (Anthochaera) or miners (Manorina). A 2004 molecular study has resolved that it is closely related to Melithreptus after all. Molecular clock estimates indicate that the blue-faced honeyeater diverged from the Melithreptus honeyeaters somewhere between 12.8 and 6.4 million years ago, in the Miocene epoch. It differs from them in its much larger size, brighter plumage, more gregarious nature, and larger patch of bare facial skin.<p>Molecular analysis has shown honeyeaters to be related to the Pardalotidae (pardalotes), Acanthizidae (Australian warblers, scrubwrens, thornbills, etc.), and the Maluridae (Australian fairy-wrens) in the large superfamily Meliphagoidea.<p>"Blue-faced honeyeater" has been designated as the official common name for the species by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). Early naturalist George Shaw had called it the blue-faced honey-sucker in 1826. Other common names include white-quilled honeyeater, and blue-eye. Its propensity for feeding on the flowers and fruit of bananas in north Queensland has given it the common name of banana-bird. A local name from Mackay in central Queensland is pandanus-bird, as it is always found around Pandanus palms there. It is called morning-bird from its dawn calls before other birds of the bush. Gympie is a Queensland bushman's term. Thomas Watling noted a local indigenous name was der-ro-gang. John Hunter recorded the term gugurruk (pron. "co-gurrock"), but the term was also applied to the black-shouldered kite (Elanus axillaris). It is called (minha) yeewi in Pakanh, where minha is a qualifier meaning 'meat' or 'animal', and (inh-)ewelmb in Uw Oykangand and Uw Olkola, where inh- is a qualifier meaning 'meat' or 'animal', in three aboriginal languages of central Cape York Peninsula<p>Three subspecies are recognised:

Scientific name

Entomyzon cyanotis

Authority

(Latham, 1801)

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Meliphagidae

Genus

Entomyzon

Range and habitat

The blue-faced honeyeater is found from the Kimberleys in northwestern Australia eastwards across the Top End and into Queensland, where it is found from Cape York south across the eastern and central parts of the state, roughly east of a line connecting Karumba, Blackall, Cunnamulla and Currawinya National Park. It has a patchy distribution in New South Wales, occurring in the Northern Rivers and Northern Tablelands regions, and along the coast south to Nambucca Heads. To the south, it is generally absent from the Central and South Coast, and is instead found west of the Great Divide across the South West Slopes and Riverina to the Murray River. It is common in northern Victoria and reaches Bordertown in southeastern South Australia, its range continuing along the Murray. It is also found in the Grampians region, particularly in the vicinity of Stawell, Ararat and St Arnaud, with rare reports from southwestern Victoria. The species occasionally reaches Adelaide, and there is a single record from the Eyre Peninsula. The altitude ranges from sea level to around 850 m (2,790 ft), or rarely 1,000 m (3,300 ft).<p>In New Guinea, it is found from Merauke in the far southeast of Indonesia's Papua province and east across the Trans-Fly region of southwestern Papua New Guinea. It has also been recorded from the Aru Islands.<p>The blue-faced honeyeater appears to be generally sedentary within its range, especially in much of the Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales. However, in many places (generally south of the Tropic of Capricorn), populations may be present or absent at different times of the year, although this appears to result from nomadic, rather than seasonal, migratory movements. Around Wellington in central New South Wales, birds were recorded over winter months, and were more common in autumn around the Talbragar River. Birds were present all year round near Inverell in northern New South Wales, but noted to be flying eastwards from January to May, and westwards in June and July. In Jandowae in southeastern Queensland, birds were regularly recorded flying north and east from March to June, and returning south and west in July and August, and were absent from the area in spring and summer.<p>They live throughout rainforest, dry sclerophyll (Eucalyptus) forest, open woodland, Pandanus thickets, paperbarks, mangroves, watercourses, and wetter areas of semi-arid regions, as well as parks, gardens, and golf courses in urban areas. The understory in eucalypt-dominated woodland, where the blue-faced honeyeater is found, is most commonly composed of grasses, such as Triodia, but sometimes it is made up of shrubs or small trees, such as grevilleas, paperbarks, wattles, Cooktown ironwood (Erythrophleum chlorostachys) or billygoat plum (Terminalia ferdinandiana). One study in Kakadu National Park found that blue-faced honeyeaters inhabited mixed stands of eucalypts and Pandanus, but were missing from pure stands of either plant.

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

Migration pattern: Resident species.

Conservation

Population trend: stable.

Population trend

stable