So, the Singing Honeyeater

["Kim Farley via Canberrabirds " <>]

Ah yes. I will update the post on Facebook from south east to south west. I will also add your additional info as a comment to the original post. And you might be interested to know that 15 people have 'liked' the post on our Facebook page. 

Kim 

On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 1:38 PM Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

Thank you Kim.  The Gould plate of this species was by Henry Richter who was employed by John Gould to work on the illustrations after the death of Elizabeth in 1841 at age 37.

 

In the below I should have said ‘south-western Victoria’ not ‘south-eastern’.  The narrow coastal strip used by this species extends from South Australia in the west to about Westernport in the east.  There is an informative map in Directory of Australian Birds, Schodde & Mason, 1999.  This shows, in my view, how the sandy coastal strip might have been colonised from the  west by a population that became specialist feeders on the coastal shrubbery, not advancing inland.

 

Below is a comment in Belcher 1914.

 

 

From: Kim Farley <>
Sent: Friday, 19 September 2025 6:40 PM
To: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Cc: Canberrabirds <>
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] So, the Singing Honeyeater

 

A very interesting post Geoffrey. Some folk might wonder if the blank areas on the maps reflect lack of observers rather than a lack of Singing Honeyeaters. But my quick look at an eBird Species Map for the super widespread Aust Magpie shows pretty much all those blank areas filled with Magpie reports. So, the blank spaces are indeed indicative of a lack of Singing Honeyeaters rather than a lack of observers

Kim

PS I presume the painting is an Elizabeth Gould work? If so, she did a lovely job of it. Much better than her Pilotbird

 

On Fri, Sep 19, 2025 at 1:32 PM Geoffrey Dabb via Canberrabirds <> wrote:

is making one of its infrequent visits here.  This is an excuse for mentioning again the unusual occurrence pattern.  In south-eastern Victoria, this is almost exclusively coastal.  Below eBird locations are from this year so far. John Gould, from the slight information available, had said ‘I have abundant evidence that the range of this species extends across the entire continent of Australia from east to west’.  Broadly true, except for some extensive blank spaces.

 

 

--
This is the email announcement and discussion list of the Canberra Ornithologists Group.
Emails posted to the list that exceed 2 MB (2,000 kB) in size, including attachments, will be rejected.
All emails distributed via the list are archived at http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds. It is a condition of list membership that you agree to your contributions being archived.

Canberrabirds mailing list

https://lists.canberrabirds.org.au/mailman/listinfo/canberrabirds

This email and any files transmitted with it may contain confidential information. If you believe you have received this email or any of its contents in error, please notify me immediately by return email and destroy this email. Do not use, disseminate, forward, print or copy any contents of an email received in error.

ATT00001.txt
Description: ATT00001.txt