Yesterday, you caught a glimpse of the White-Eared Honeyeater in My Morning Walk and I promised you more photos today.  Here they are!

We’ve been catching glimpses of this species ever since we moved in, but they are fast, and tend to spend their time in denser trees. This makes them hard to photograph.

On my walk, I actually stopped to photograph of the almost-sculptural branch the honeyeater is sitting on. The bark looks to have been carefully wrapped for affect by a modern artist.  At first, I didn’t see the bird, and I had two images of the branch in my camera before I even noticed the honeyeater sitting on it.  Even then, I didn’t see the bird so much as hear it. Searching for insects in the folds of bark caused short scratching noises. Scanning for the source of the noise, I finally saw the olive, yellow, black and white markings contrasted so beautifully against the pale bark. Aha!  At last!

My field guide describes the White-Eared Honeyeater as ‘nervously active’ and this is a perfect description of the behaviour I observed. It never settled in one spot for more than a second or two, constantly changing position to probe under the next fold of bark and the next, and the next.  This is a bird I take great pleasure in adding to the A-Z Species List of birds.

Enjoy viewing the photos – I’ve added extra information about the bird under each one.