Painted Honeyeater (Grantiella picta)
Photo: Marthijn de Kool
Description
- Painted Honeyeaters are bright and showy with black, white and yellow feathers, and a pink beak.
- They can grow up to 16 cm in length and weigh between 20-25 g.
- These birds depend on parasitic mistletoe plants.
- They often eat mistletoe fruits during their breeding season, and feed on mistletoe nectar when fruit is scarce.
- They build cup-shaped nests from rootlets, plant fibres and spiderwebs, and hang them from trees parasitised by mistletoe.
- They can live in several different woodland communities with mature native trees and mistletoe.
- The Painted Honeyeater lives in parts of south-eastern Australia, southern Queensland, and some parts of the Northern Territory.
- They follow mistletoe fruiting, which matches their breeding time. The species sometimes visits the ACT for short periods during late spring and summer.
- These birds prefer living in eucalypt forests and woodlands with plenty of mistletoe. They can also be found in acacia woodlands or near water in places with paperbarks and casuarina trees.
Find out more about the Painted Honeyeater on Canberra NatureMapr.
Where to find them
In the ACT, you can find them in different types of woodlands with mistletoes, such as:
- the River Oak woodland along rivers
- the Yellow Box–Red Gum Woodlands in places like Mulligans Flat and Campbell Park.
Conservation threats
The key threats to the Painted Honeyeater are:
- loss of foraging and nesting habitat
- declining habitat quality from overgrazing by livestock
- mistletoe tree removal in rural areas and forests
- competition for food with birds such as the Common Myna and the Red Wattlebird
- fire
- climate change.
Conservation status
- National – Vulnerable (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999).
- Australian Capital Territory – Vulnerable (Nature Conservation Act 2014).