Banders Round up

Honeyeaters at Capillosa

Michael and Lesley Brooker 

In July 2003, we bought a bush block north of Westonia in the Eastern Wheatbelt. We called it "Capillosa" as it contains some excellent stands of the Wheatbelt Wandoo Eucalyptus capillosa. As well as woodlands, there are large areas of heath and granite outcrops.

One part of the area is cropped, while another part was cleared in the 1980s and cropped for only one season or not at all. It is in this once cleared, now regenerating, 100 hectares of heath and woodland that we have done most of our banding. As well as netting some of the small insectivores for breeding studies, we have attempted to catch as many honeyeaters as possible during the times that they are concentrated on particular food sources such as Calothamnus gilesii, Grevillea excelsior, G. hookeriana, Hakea francisiana, Eucalyptus burracoppinensis, E. leptopoda and E. eremophila.

During each of the 5 full years that we have been there (2004 - 2008), between 65 and 104 individual honeyeaters were captured, except in the very dry year 2007, when only 16 individuals were caught. The table below shows that we have netted at least one of all but one of the 11 honeyeater species known to be present, the exception being the Yellow-throated Miner which was rarely seen in the regeneration area. As might be expected, resident species were more likely to be retrapped than migrants and nomads. The recording rate may also reflect the degree of nectar dependence with only the three most sedentary species (Singers, Brown-headeds and White-ears) present at Capillosa during periods when no nectar sources appeared to be available.