Yes more like “shirp”. I reckon the real contrast in Geoff’s comment is not on the word “sometimes”
but that white-naped in flight sometimes give the ...... call, rather than the chip chip,
which is the call of the Yellow-faced H.” I also suggest that
They are also distinctly smaller/dumpier than the yellow-faced, regardless of if they are together.
Yes it is far more distinct to see the difference, if they are together. Also the W-n have white underparts. The usual pattern is that Y-f are the majority species earlier in March & April and the proportion of W-n increases as we get into mid April & May.
Overall there is usually more vocalisations coming from the Y-f rather than the W-n H.
I suggest to Jean that identifying birds by their shadow is difficult...... I have done this for a Tawny Frogmouth (moon shadow at night, although that really
was finding, rather than identifying), also S-c Cockatoo, Pelican and that is about it.
Philip
From: Martin Butterfield [
Sent: Sunday, 10 April, 2016 9:36 AM
To: Geoffrey Dabb
Cc: canberrabirds
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Honeyeaters still moving over Duffy today
I am unsure how to orally-reproduce ‘smjeep’ but don't recall that being the sound I make when sucking lollies,
which is more like "Schulloooop" or "scrunchh" - depending on your choice of lolly. The distinction given to me by Denis Wilson, presumably based on many Autumns lurking beside nets on New Chums Rd, and which works well is that White-naped Honeyeaters 'mew'
when migrating whereas YFHE 'chip'.
PS another lolly sucking noise - mainly restricted to strong toffees - is 'yaroooooo' when fillings are loosened.
On 10 April 2016 at 09:23, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:
Jean - white-naped in flight sometimes give the ‘smjeep’ lolly-sucking call rather than the chip chip. They are also distinctly smaller/dumpier than
the yellow-faced if seen together g
From: casburnj
[
Sent: Saturday, 9 April 2016 10:00 PM
To: canberrabirds
Cc: 'sandra henderson'
Subject: [canberrabirds] Honeyeaters still moving over Duffy today
I thought the stream might have finished 2 days ago, but low and behold for about 1.5 hours this morning, White-naped Honeyeaters and Yellow-faced Honeyeater continued to move over
my garden. Some reasonable sized groups of these birds were not calling, but were evident by the shadows they cast – have others seen this and if so were they also likely to be White-naped?
Jean
