White Plumed Honeyeater comes for a bath
White Plumed and New Holland Honeyeaters
Over recent days I have been writing about and showing photos of various birds coming to visit our birdbath. Usually the New Holland Honeyeaters dominate proceedings, making a terrible din and splashing water everywhere.
On this occasion a solitary White Plumed Honeyeater forced its way in , running the gauntlet of the mob. I am not sure what it is doing in the photo below. Almost seems like it has landed awkwardly. It’s probably just flapping its wings and I caught it in an unusual pose.
White Plumed and New Holland Honeyeaters
The White Plumed Honeyeater was the first baby bird I raised in doing Fauna Rescue. Such a beautiful bird 🙂
In recent years I have lived in several homes and found that it is very rear to see the White plumed honeyeaters and the new Holland honeyeaters together. They do not seem to co habitat the same territories. The 2 homes that I have lived the in longest, less than 2k apart, the first I never once saw a new Holland honeyeater and the last and my current, up until recently I never saw a white plumed honey eater.
Over the last 7 years it has been a case that the NHH have been totally dominant, I have seen what seems like a family of around 16 of them in and around my garden. Only recently have I started seeing WPH in the garden, the result being that the NHH get upset and gang warfare starts. The NHH seem to be holding out, but it is becoming more frequent that they fight making a quite a racket flying from tree to tree chasing each other.
Also for an explanation of how a WPH has a bath (as shown above) please the following website – http://www.mdahlem.net/birds/18/whplmhon.php#dist
Gary