White-eared Honeyeater

Lichenostomus leucotis

The White-eared Honeyeater is fairly solitary and records are usually of only one or two birds. It feeds less on nectar than most other honeyeaters, more often foraging for insects among leaves and bark of eucalypts. It has a loud and distinctive call that often attracts attention.

As an altitudinal migrant, numbers increase markedly in Canberra suburbs in April as birds leave their summer breeding sites in the mountains. Many birds over-winter in the suburbs or surrounding woodlands until late August to early September when they return to the ranges to breed. White-eared Honeyeaters are almost absent from the suburbs from November until March. Annual numbers recorded have fluctuated greatly. The greater number of records in the late 1990s is partly due to the input from a single site which only operated during this period. The only breeding records are of dependent young from a single rural site near Queanbeyan in August-September 1998. R=32. BR=85.

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