Spring is a moveable feast.
For Perth’s nectar-eaters, their season of abundance is already underway.
However, “honeyeaters” like Phylidonyris novaehollandiae – the New Holland honeyeater – cannot survive on a 100% nectar diet.
(Both photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken within one minute of each other, late yesterday afternoon, at the southwest “corner” of Lake Monger. There, birds are enjoying recently reestablished native vegetation)
Click here, then click here to discover more about nectar and pollination. For a briefer, Australian overview of the latter, click here
Excellent and complex food that it is, nectar does not provide protein.
Watch them carefully, and you will see that New England honeyeaters are also hunters…of insects and spiders.
To see more detail, zoom in on/ enlarge this image.
Coming soon: more lemurs and a southwest Tasmanian ocean shore.
Good fotos doug!