Brown Honeyeater
Encyclopedia


The Brown Honeyeater (Lichmera indistincta) is a honeyeater
Honeyeater
The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family of small to medium sized birds most common in Australia and New Guinea, but also found in New Zealand, the Pacific islands as far east as Samoa and Tonga, and the islands to the north and west of New Guinea known as Wallacea...

, a group of bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s found mainly in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

 which have highly developed brush-tipped tongues adapted for nectar feeding. It is a medium-small brownish bird, with yellow-olive panels in the tail and wing and a yellow tuft behind the eye.

Widespread across western, northern and eastern Australia, the Brown Honeyeater occupies a range of habitats from mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

s to eucalypt
Eucalypt
Eucalypts are woody plants belonging to three closely related genera:Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora.In 1995 new evidence, largely genetic, indicated that some prominent Eucalyptus species were actually more closely related to Angophora than to the other eucalypts; they were split off into the...

 woodlands. It is seasonally nomadic within its local area, following flowering food plants. While it usually forages alone, it also feeds in small groups, or flocks of mixed honeyeater species. Nectar and insects form its diet. It occupies the same breeding territory each year, and lays two or three eggs in a cup-shaped nest woven from grass and soft bark. Both sexes contribute to nest building and feeding the young. It has a loud, clear, musical song, described as the best of all the honeyeaters.

While the Brown Honeyeater is declining in some areas such as the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, overall its population levels and distribution are sufficient to have it described as of Least Concern
Least Concern
Least Concern is an IUCN category assigned to extant taxon or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, Near Threatened, or Conservation Dependent...

 for conservation.

Taxonomy

The Brown Honeyeater was originally described by Nicholas Aylward Vigors
Nicholas Aylward Vigors
Nicholas Aylward Vigors was an Irish zoologist and politician.Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford. He served in the army during the Peninsular War from 1809 to 1811. He then returned to Oxford, graduating with a B.A. in 1815 and in 1817 with an...

 and Thomas Horsfield
Thomas Horsfield
Thomas Horsfield M. D. was an American physician and naturalist.Horsfield was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the grandson of Timothy Horsfield, Sr., a colonel and justice of the peace in Bethlehem, and a friend mentioned in Benjamin...

 in 1827 as Meliphaga indistincta. The species name indistincta is from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 word meaning 'obscure'. Vigors and Horsfield were working from the bird collection of the Linnean Society in London, and they said of the Brown Honeyeater specimen, “It is however in very bad condition, and scarcely admits of a description.” Later included in the "catch-all" genus Gliciphila, the Brown Honeyeater is now classified as a member of the genus Lichmera, from the Greek word meaning ‘to lick’ or ‘to dart the tongue’, following Schodde
Richard Schodde
Richard Schodde, OAM is an Australian botanist and ornithologist.Schodde studied at the University of Adelaide where he received a BSc in 1960 and a PhD in 1970. During the 1960s he was a botanist with the CSIRO Division of Land Research and Regional Survey in Papua New Guinea...

 (1975), Sibley
Charles Sibley
Charles Gald Sibley was an American ornithologist and molecular biologist. He had an immense influence on the scientific classification of birds, and the work that Sibley initiated has substantially altered our understanding of the evolutionary history of modern birds.Sibley's taxonomy has been a...

 and Monroe
Burt Monroe
Burt Leavelle Monroe, Jr was an American ornithologist, a member of the American Ornithologists' Union since 1953, as Director of the Commission of classification and nomenclature and president from 1990 to 1992.- His studies :Burt L...

 (1990) and Christidis and Boles
Leslie Christidis
Leslie Christidis , also simply known as Les Christidis, is an Australian ornithologist. His main research field is the evolution and systematics of birds. He has been director of Southern Cross University National Marine Science Centre since 2009...

 (1994). As well as the nominate race Lichmera indistincta indistincta, a number of other sub-species are recognised: ocularis (derived from the Medieval Latin word "oculus" meaning eye), melvillensis (named for Melville Island where it is found), limbatus (from the Latin for fringed) and nupta (from the Latin "nubere" meaning to marry, or be married to). The Indonesian Honeyeater
Indonesian Honeyeater
The Indonesian Honeyeater is a species of bird in the Meliphagidae family. It is the only species of honeyeater to occur west of the Wallace Line, the biogeographical boundary between the Australian-Papuan and Oriental zoogeographical regions...

 Lichmera limbata is treated as a sub-species of L. indistincta by some taxonomic authorities.

Molecular analysis has shown honeyeaters to be related to the Pardalotidae (pardalotes), Acanthizidae
Acanthizidae
The Acanthizidae, also known as the Australasian warblers, are a family of passerine birds which include gerygones, thornbills, and scrubwrens. The Acanthizidae consists of small to medium passerine birds, with a total length varying between 8 and 19 cm. They have short rounded wings, slender...

 (Australian warblers, scrubwrens, thornbills, etc.), and the Maluridae
Maluridae
The Maluridae are a family of small, insectivorous passerine birds endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Commonly known as wrens, they are unrelated to the true wrens of the Northern Hemisphere...

 (Australian fairy-wrens) in a large Meliphagoidea
Meliphagoidea
Meliphagoidea is a superfamily of passerine birds. They contain a vast diversity of small to mid-sized songbirds widespread in the Austropacific region. The Australian Continent has the largest richness in genera and species.-Systematics:...

 superfamily.

Appearance

The Brown Honeyeater is a medium-small, plain grey-brown honeyeater with a body length of 12–16 cm (4.7–6.3 in), a wingspan of 18–23 cm (7.1–9.1 in), and an average weight of 9–11 g (0.317465658946008–0.388013583156232 oz). The female is slightly smaller than the male, but the sexes differ only slightly in appearance. The head, back, rump, and upper tail-coverts are brown, and the wings a darker brown. The only distinguishing features are a small yellow patch behind the eye, which is indistinct in some birds, and dull yellow-olive panels in the folded wings and tail. The Brown Honeyeater’s sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species. Examples of such differences include differences in morphology, ornamentation, and behavior.-Examples:-Ornamentation / coloration:...

 is slight. The adult male has a dark brownish-grey forehead and crown, contrasting with a brownish nape. The forehead and crown of the adult female is a similar olive-brown to the rest of the upper body. A juvenile bird is similar to the female, but may lack or show only a trace of the yellow tuft behind the eye. The bill
Bill
- Documents :* Banknote, paper money* Handbill, paper leaflet* Poster, form of advertising* Billboard, large board on which to display advertising posters or displays* Bill , document requesting payment for goods or services rendered...

 is black, and is long, slender and curved slightly downwards, well adapted for probing deep tubular flowers. The gape
Gape
In bird anatomy, the gape is the interior of the open mouth of a bird and the gape flange is the region where the two mandibles join together, at the base of the beak...

 in the male is black when breeding, and pale yellow at other times. The gape of the female is always pale yellow, and in the juvenile bright yellow and swollen. The iris is brown, and the feet and legs grey-black.

The appearance of the various subspecies is uniform, with other races similar in size and plumage to the nominate race with slight variations in degrees of colouration and small differences in the length of the bill and the tail. Compared with L. i. indistincta, the male L. i. occularis has slightly darker feathers on the top of the head with a greater contrast between crown and nape, and a longer bill. L. i. melvillensis has a moderately darker throat and breast than indistincta, and the female has a shorter tail. In L. i. nupta the differences between the sexes are even slighter than in the nominate race.

Vocalizations

The nondescript Brown Honeyeater has a noteworthy song, usually described in superlatives. “A glorious voice, easily the best songster among Australian honeyeaters,” is how one study of West Australian birds noted. “As a singer it has no superior among the Honeyeater family, or for that matter, among Australian birds,” said another report. It has a clear, rolling, musical call, rendered as “sweet-sweet-quarty-quarty”, which is very loud for the size of the bird. Both sexes call, usually early in the morning, though the male calls throughout the day during the breeding season. The alarm call is a harsh “ke-ke” given several times at short intervals.

Distribution and habitat

The Brown Honeyeater is found in a wide range of wooded habitats, and is widespread across Australia. The nominate race ranges across a broad band from Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...

 on the New South Wales coast north and west to Queensland and the Top End
Top End
The Top End of northern Australia is the second northernmost point on the continent. It covers a rather vaguely-defined area of perhaps 400,000 square kilometres behind the northern coast from the Northern Territory capital of Darwin across to Arnhem Land with the Indian Ocean on the west, the...

 to south-western Western Australia. It is rarely seen in Sydney, where populations have declined since the late 1950s, though it is being recorded in suitable habitats such as Homebush Bay and Kurnell
Kurnell, New South Wales
Kurnell is a suburb in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Kurnell is located south of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Sutherland Shire....

 in small numbers, and is a vagrant to the Illawarra
Illawarra
Illawarra is a region in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is a coastal region situated immediately south of Sydney and north of the Shoalhaven or South Coast region. It encompasses the cities of Wollongong, Shellharbour, Shoalhaven and the town of Kiama. The central region contains Lake...

 region. It is rare in South Australia, and not present in Victoria and Tasmania. Population densities range from 2.3 birds per 1 hectares (2.5 acre) in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

, to 0.26 birds per hectare in Wellard in Western Australia.

L. i. ocularis is found in New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

, the Torres Strait Islands
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands which lie in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea but Torres Strait Island known and Recognize as Nyumaria.The islands are mostly part of...

, and Cape York
Cape York Peninsula
Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...

 intergrading with the nominate race along the Gulf of Carpentaria
Gulf of Carpentaria
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...

 river system. L. i. melvillensis inhabits the Tiwi Islands
Tiwi Islands
The Tiwi Islands are part of Australia's Northern Territory, north of Darwin where the Arafura Sea joins the Timor Sea. They comprise Melville Island and Bathurst Island, with a combined area of ....

, while L. i. limbata is found in Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...

 and the Lesser Sundas
Lesser Sunda Islands
The Lesser Sunda Islands or Nusa Tenggara are a group of islands in the southern Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up the Sunda Islands...

, and L. i. nupta on the Aru Islands
Aru Islands
The Aru Islands are a group of about ninety-five low-lying islands in the Maluku province of eastern Indonesia. They also form a regency of Indonesia.-Geography:...

.

The Brown Honeyeater is seasonally nomadic across its local area in response to flowering food plants. For example, there are marked increases in numbers in Toowoomba in south-east Queensland during winter, and in the Northern Territory the range contracts during the dry season
Dry season
The dry season is a term commonly used when describing the weather in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which oscillates from the northern to the southern tropics over the course of the year...

. It is commonly found among mangroves in coastal areas including Black Mangroves
Rhizophora
Rhizophora is a genus of tropical mangrove trees, sometimes collectively called true mangroves. The most notable species is the Red Mangrove but some other species and a few natural hybrids are known. Rhizophora species generally live in intertidal zones which are indundated daily by the ocean...

 (Rhizophora mucronata). It is often in woodlands that merge into the mangroves, such as those dominated by Banksia
Banksia
Banksia is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes and fruiting "cones" and heads. When it comes to size, banksias range from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up...

, Melaleuca
Melaleuca
Melaleuca is a genus of plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae known for its natural soothing and cleansing properties. There are well over 200 recognised species, most of which are endemic to Australia...

or Callistemon, and widespread in sclerophyll forests and eucalypt
Eucalypt
Eucalypts are woody plants belonging to three closely related genera:Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora.In 1995 new evidence, largely genetic, indicated that some prominent Eucalyptus species were actually more closely related to Angophora than to the other eucalypts; they were split off into the...

 woodlands. In the arid
Arid
A region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life...

 and semi-arid inland of Australia it is most often recorded in Acacia
Acacia
Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...

, Grevillea
Grevillea
Grevillea is a diverse genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the protea family Proteaceae, native to Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Sulawesi. It was named in honour of Charles Francis Greville. The species range from prostrate shrubs less than 0.5 m tall to trees...

and Hakea
Hakea
Hakea is a genus of 149 species of shrubs and small trees in the Proteaceae, native to Australia. They are found throughout the country, with the highest species diversity being found in the south west of Western Australia....

shrubland along watercourses, and at bores
Borehole
A borehole is the generalized term for any narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water or other liquid or gases , as part of a geotechnical investigation, environmental site...

, springs and drainage lines. It visits flowering shrubs in parks and gardens, and occurs in remnant patches of trees on travelling stock routes
Stock route
In Australia, the Travelling Stock Route is an authorised thoroughfare for the walking of domestic livestock such as sheep or cattle from one location to another...

.

Behaviour

A busy, acrobatic bird, the Brown Honeyeater is frequently on the wing, hovering over flowers and pursuing insects in flight.

Feeding

The Brown Honeyeater feeds mainly in the foliage and flowers in the canopy of trees and shrubs, though it does use all levels of the habitat including the ground. It feeds singly and in pairs, but will gather in small groups or in mixed-species feeding flocks with other honeyeaters, such as Banded
Banded Honeyeater
The Banded Honeyeater is a species of bird in the Meliphagidae family.It is endemic to Australia.Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests, subtropical or tropical mangrove forests, and Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation.-References:* BirdLife International 2004. . ...

, Yellow-tinted
Yellow-tinted Honeyeater
The Yellow-tinted Honeyeater is a species of bird in the Meliphagidae family.It is found in Australia and Papua New Guinea....

, Black-chinned
Black-chinned Honeyeater
The Black-chinned Honeyeater is a species of passerine bird in the Meliphagidae family. It is endemic to Australia. Two subspecies are recognised. Its natural habitats are temperate forests and subtropical or tropical dry forests.The Black-chinned Honeyeater was first described by John Gould in 1837...

 and Rufous-throated
Rufous-throated Honeyeater
The Rufous-throated Honeyeater is a species of bird in the Meliphagidae family.It is endemic to Australia.Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical mangrove forests.-References:...

. Observations of foraging birds record the Brown Honeyeater feeding primarily on nectar, and taking some insects. Main sources of nectar include flowering mistletoe and mangroves, Bloodwood
Corymbia polycarpa
Corymbia polycarpa or the long-fruited bloodwood is a bloodwood native to Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales; more specifically it is found across northern Australia and into northwestern New South Wales.It is a medium-sized tree which can reach 10–18 m in height...

, Woollybutt
Eucalyptus miniata
The Darwin woollybutt is a eucalypt which is native to Australia's Top End, found from Cape York in north Queensland across through to the Northern Territory into the Kimberley Region of northern Western Australia. It is a medium-sized tree which can reach 15–25 m in height. The bark is soft and...

, Cajeput
Cajeput Tree
Cajeput tree is the common name used for certain members of the genus Melaleuca, native to Australia, commonly known within the aromatherapy trade in North America as the Tea Tree. Primarily it refers to M. leucadendra, M. linariifolia, M. viridflora and M. quinquenervia. The cajeput trees are the...

, and Banksia
Banksia
Banksia is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes and fruiting "cones" and heads. When it comes to size, banksias range from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up...

and Grevillea
Grevillea
Grevillea is a diverse genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the protea family Proteaceae, native to Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Sulawesi. It was named in honour of Charles Francis Greville. The species range from prostrate shrubs less than 0.5 m tall to trees...

species. Nectar is primarily taken from flowers with cups of stamen
Stamen
The stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...

s, brush-shaped inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

s, or tubular flowers. The Brown Honeyeater will hover above small flowers while extracting nectar, perch on a stem for large single flowers, and, in the case of Banksia flowers, perch on unopened florets at the top of the inflorescence.

Insects were most often gleaned from leaves or bark, and sometimes caught by sallying or taken from the ground. Insects eaten include beetle
Beetle
Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

s, flies
Fly
True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...

, ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

s, wasp
Wasp
The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...

s and bee
Bee
Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...

s.

The Brown Honeyeater is more active in the early morning than at other times of the day; flying more when visiting flowers at the time when nectar is most abundant. Its body mass decreases during the night, and then increases during the day with the greatest increase occurring during the important first hour of early morning foraging. It seems to make up around half of the overnight water loss during this hour. The energy that the Brown Honeyeater can potentially get from nectar exceeds its requirements in all seasons except winter, when it needs to be selective in the plants that are used, to balance energy intake and expenditure. It compensates for any lessening in nectar concentration by increasing the frequency of feeding.

Breeding

No courtship displays of the Brown Honeyeater have been recorded, other than increased singing from vantage points by the male. The pair usually nests solitarily in areas of low population density. In an area near Newcastle, New South Wales
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...

 with a number of breeding pairs, all nests were at least 20 metres (65.6 ft) apart. The same nesting territories are occupied each year, however it is not known if the territories, or the nests, are used by the same birds each year.

The breeding season varies markedly across the Brown Honeyeater’s range, with breeding recorded in one location or another in every month of the year. Breeding can occur two or more times a year if conditions are favourable. The nest is built in a variety of vegetation types, usually in dense foliage in the fork of a horizontal branch, often near water, and rarely more than 2 metres (6.6 ft) above ground. The nest is a small, deep, round cup, woven from small pieces of grass and soft bark, especially Melaleuca
Melaleuca
Melaleuca is a genus of plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae known for its natural soothing and cleansing properties. There are well over 200 recognised species, most of which are endemic to Australia...

bark, bound with spiders web and lined with plant down, such as from Banksia
Banksia
Banksia is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes and fruiting "cones" and heads. When it comes to size, banksias range from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up...

s, or cow hair or wool.. Both sexes contribute to the nest building, though the male also stands guard while the female is building the nest.

The eggs vary in shape, but most often are a rounded oval. They are white and lustreless, and sometimes have a pinkish or brownish tinge. They can be un-marked, or spotted with faint reddish or brownish flecks. The eggs are approximately 17 millimetre (0.669291338582677 in) long and 13 millimetre (0.511811023622047 in) across, and laid in a clutch of two or three. The female incubates
Avian incubation
Incubation refers to the process by which certain oviparous animals hatch their eggs, and to the development of the embryo within the egg. The most vital factor of incubation is the constant temperature required for its development over a specific period. Especially in domestic fowl, the act of...

 the eggs and broods the chicks alone, but both sexes feed the young and remove faecal sacs. The fledging period is thirteen or fourteen days, with around 44% of nests where the outcome was known successfully fledging young.

Nests are known to be predated by Green Tree Ants
Oecophylla smaragdina
Oecophylla smaragdina is a species of arboreal ant found in Asia and Australia. They make nests in trees made of leaves stitched together using the silk produced by their larvae.Weaver ants may be red or green...

, which attack the newly hatched nestlings, and the Pied Currawong
Pied Currawong
The Pied Currawong is a medium-sized black passerine bird native to eastern Australia and Lord Howe Island. One of three currawong species in the genus Strepera, it is closely related to the butcherbirds and Australian Magpie of the family Artamidae. Six subspecies are recognised...

, which takes young from the nest. Nests are parasitized by the Brush Cuckoo
Brush Cuckoo
The Brush Cuckoo, Cacomantis variolosus, is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes, which also includes the roadrunners, the anis, and the Hoatzin....

, Pallid Cuckoo
Pallid Cuckoo
The Pallid Cuckoo is a species of cuckoo in the Cuculidae family.It is found in Australia, Christmas Island, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea....

, and Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo
Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo
The Horsfield's Bronze Cuckoo is a species of cuckoo in the Cuculidae family, found from Australia to South-east Asia. The species was previously known by the scientific name of Chalcites basalis.-Media:...

.

Conservation status

The Brown Honeyeater population is declining in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia as a result of the clearing of native vegetation. Numbers are increasing in urban areas, particularly in parks and gardens and around farms; however, the new habitats have increased the incidences of death from cats, cars and collisions with windows. Overall the population is sufficiently large and widespread for the Brown Honeyeater to be considered of Least Concern
Least Concern
Least Concern is an IUCN category assigned to extant taxon or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, Near Threatened, or Conservation Dependent...

for conservation.

External links

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