Painted Honeyeaters - Singing and foraging in the Capertee Valley

BIBY TV is delighted to present this rare footage of Painted Honeyeaters (Grantiella picta) singing and foraging for mistletoe berries. All these special scenes were captured and edited by the conservationist, citizen scientist and renowned wildlife sound recordist, Vicki Powys, who exclusively owns all rights to the video. For more information about this wonderful production please read Vicki’s description below.
“I videoed several Painted Honeyeaters (Grantiella picta) that were feeding and calling in mistletoe (Amyema species) within a stand of ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra), in Capertee Valley NSW, during October 2023. These small, black and white honeyeaters have a pink bill and bright yellow wing patches. This species is described as elusive, rare, migratory and threatened.
The calls are loud and distinctive, and I captured six variations of the basic 2-note "see-sue" song of the male. Sonagrams of six different songs are included.
Painted Honeyeaters feed mainly on mistletoe berries and, like Mistletoebirds, they excrete the partly-digested sticky mistletoe seeds onto tree branches where they take root and grow into new mistletoe plants. You can see this action at 1m59s and 3m16s. Mistletoe berries are edible and taste rather like lychees!
Filmed and recorded by Vicki Powys in October 2023 using a pocket camera Lumix DCM-TZ80, with supplementary audio recorded with an Olympus LS-P5 recorder and electret microphones. The final movie was created using iMovie on an iMac computer.”

[@darkman11111]

Very good video thanks

[@missapippin9020]

Beautiful song

[@berthendrikx]

Nice video of this beautiful bird, thanks.

[@mickroderick7255]

Thoroughly great stuff Vicki! And thanks for posting Thalia. That mistletoe is Box Mistletoe (Amyema miquelii), probably Australia's most widespread mistletoe. I think it's fair to say that Painteds prefer Acacia-borne mistletoes like Grey (A. quandang) and Needle-leaf (A. cambageii). The latter is flowering in the Capertee at the moment, so it's too early for there to be fruit present. There's loads of fruit in those Box Mistletoes though; no wonder they're getting stuck into it. So great to see the deposition of the seed onto the branches - it doesn't need to "dance" as much as as Mistletoebird!

[@VickiPowys]

Thanks Mick, and for the ID of the mistletoe! The honeyeaters have moved on now I think. I had hoped they might nest there.