#anthochaera

A juvenile yellow wattlebird (Anthochaera paradoxa) feeding on a Weeping Bottlebrush in Bridport, Tasmania, Australia

Regent Honeyeater (Anthochaera phrygia), family Meliphagidae, SE Australia

ENDANGERED.

A female regent honeyeater in Capertee national park, New South Wales, Australia. There are only 300 to 400 of the birds left in the wild, says Ross Crates, an ecologist at Australia National University. They depend on nectar from certain eucalyptus tree blossoms, but the dry weather has meant many trees are producing no nectar. A preliminary analysis by Birdlife Australia found that across the country, 19 birds had more than half their habitat seriously affected by fire. Another 58 had lost over a third of the area they live in.

Photograph: David Stowe/AP

Critically endangered honeyeater population discovered

Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have found a new breeding population of the critically endangered regent honeyeater. The regent honeyeater used to be one of the most abundant birds in south-eastern Australia but there are now fewer than 400 in the wild.

Lead researcher Dr Laura Rayner said it was exciting to find more than 20 previously unrecorded birds in the chronically under-surveyed New England Tablelands bioregion in New South Wales. "After hundreds of surveys turning up zeros we were so excited to find the birds. It was like finding a needle in a haystack," said Dr Rayner, from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society. "This discovery represents one sixth of the global breeding effort for the species."