Overview
The mistletoebird (Dicaeum hirundinaceum), also known as the mistletoe flowerpecker, is a species of flowerpecker native to most of Australia (though absent from Tasmania and the driest desert areas) and also to the eastern Maluku Islands of Indonesia in the Arafura Sea between Australia and New Guinea. The mistletoebird eats mainly the berries of the parasitic mistletoe and is a vector for the spread of the mistletoe's seeds through its digestive system.
Video
Sounds
:This is the last section of a 3 minute recording, during which the bird was calling most of the time. It continued after I stopped recording.
A photo was taken. Bird (male) was about 2 m above my head on a dead twig that looked as if the bark had been removed - the wood looked almost polished.
Habitat: open woodland, on the edge of a more heavily wooded escarpment.
Equipment: Olympus LS7, internal microphones. 48kHz wav file.
Background: there is white noise from electronics and breeze in the leaves. The pulse at 7kHz, at 200ms intervals was from an insect, and is present throughout the recording.
As I was recording, I initially noticed only the warbling tones, but later realised the 8 to 9 kHz bursts, that to my old ears sounded just like clicks, were also associated. It was only in the sonograms that it became evident that each click consists of two bursts about 40ms apart.
bird-seen:yes
playback-used:no
Common name: Mistletoebird
Type: male, song
Genus: Dicaeum
Species: hirundinaceum
Location: Winton, Queensland
Elevation: 270 mCameron Davidson · CC BY-SA 3.0
References
- GBIF Auto Sync GBIF
- Wikipedia — Mistletoebird Wikipedia
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