Scientific Name: Phylidonyris novaehollandiae

A striking honeyeater with a black head marked with white tufts on top and around the ear. The eye is also conspicuously white with a black centre. The wing and tail feathers are pale yellow, while the rest of the body is mostly grey above and white below, the latter with black and grey streaks.

Did You Know? As the honeyeaters push their beak and tongue down into the flowers, their head often becomes coated in pollen from the anthers of the plant. By travelling from flower to flower on different bushes, these birds carry out an essential role in cross-pollinating native plant species.

Habitat: A bird of the heathlands and scrub of coastal southern Australia, the New Holland honeyeater will occasionally enter gardens and parks in search of flowering plants.

Diet: As with others in the family, these honeyeaters feed primarily on nectar and pollen with the occasional insect thrown in for variety.

Reproduction: As these birds are so reliant on flowering plants for food, they will breed at any time of the year that sufficient blossoms are available. The eggs are incubated in a cup woven from bark, moss and cobwebs by the female. After hatching both parents feed the chicks. The female will sometimes leave the male to this task after the first few weeks and go off and start another nest. In this fashion, it is possible for the pair to raise two or even three broods in one year.