Красный скворец Австралии (Krasny skvorets Avstralii)

Passerine bird native to southern Australia

The red wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata) is a passerine bird native to southern Australia. At in length, it is the second largest species of Australian honeyeater. It has mainly grey brown plumage, with red eyes, distinctive pinkish red wattles on either side of the neck, white streaks on the chest and a large bright yellow patch on the lower belly. The sexes are similar in plumage. Juveniles have less prominent wattles and browner eyes. John White described the red wattlebird in 1790. Three subspecies are recognized. The species is found in southeast Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and southwest Western Australia in open forest and woodlands, and is a common visitor to urban gardens and parks. Loud and conspicuous, the red wattlebird is generally found in trees, where it gets most of its food; occasionally it forages on the ground. It is one of the largest nectarivorous birds in the world, feeding from a wide variety of flowering plants. Insects also comprise part of its diet. It is territorial and at times aggressive towards birds of other species, often defending rich sources of nectar. Breeding throughout its range, the red wattlebird builds a cup shaped nest in a tree and raises one or two broods a year. Although it has declined in places from land clearing, it is classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

The red wattlebird was first described as the wattled bee eater by the Irish surgeon and naturalist John White in his Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, which was published in 1790. who is generally credited as the author by subsequent authorities. The specific epithet, carunculata, was introduced later in the same year by John Latham. The word is derived from caruncula, Latin for 'a small piece of flesh'. Both Shaw and Latham assigned the red wattlebird to the genus Merops. The species was moved to Anthochaera in 1827 by the naturalists Nicholas Aylward Vigors and Thomas Horsfield. The generic name derives from the Ancient Greek anthos 'flower, bloom' and khairō 'enjoy'. Common names include gillbird, In the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, the local Barngarla people knew it as ngarkarko or ngarkabukko. The local people of Denial Bay in South Australia called it noggal, and the Ngarrindjeri people of the Lower Murray region in South Australia knew it as rungkan. There are three recognised subspecies, though there is a zone of intermediate birds across western Victoria and eastern South Australia, bordered by western Port Phillip Bay to the east, Mount Lofty Ranges to the west, and Little and Big Desert national parks to the north. The differences in plumage are not generally prominent enough to be noticeable in the field. A. c. carunculata (Shaw, 1790) – found in southeast Australia, namely Victoria, eastern New South Wales, and southeastern Queensland. A. c. clelandi (Mathews, 1923) – Kangaroo Island (South Australia). Of a similar size to the nominate subspecies, it tends to have darker plumage, a longer bill, and shorter tarsus. A. c. woodwardi Mathews, 1912 – southwest and south central Australia, west of the Mount Lofty Ranges. This subspecies is a little smaller than the nominate subspecies and has shorter wings. Its plumage is similar, though the yellow patch on the belly is more prominent. Analysis of DNA showed that the closest relative of the red wattlebird is the yellow wattlebird of Tasmania, the pair splitting from the ancestor of the regent honeyeater—their next closest relative. Honeyeaters are related to the Pardalotidae (pardalotes), Acanthizidae (Australian warblers, scrubwrens, thornbills, etc. ), and Maluridae (Australian fairy wrens) in the large superfamily Meliphagoidea.

The sexes of the red wattlebird are similar in size and plumage, the length of the adult male ranging from and the adult female from With an average weight of , the red wattlebird is one of the largest nectar feeding birds in the world, and the second largest species of honeyeater native to Australia, eclipsed only by the yellow wattlebird. Juveniles have much less prominent wattles, brown irises, a pale crown, and much less yellow on the belly. They moult into first immature plumage within a few months of leaving the nest. First immature birds are more similar to adults overall, having red irises with brown rings, wattles larger but still smaller than adults, and a greyish pink gape. The red wattlebird is hard to confuse with any other species, though in poor visibility it might be mistaken for the spiny cheeked honeyeater, or little or western wattlebirds.

Red wattlebirds are noisy animals, producing a range of raucous calls. Pairs of birds appear to duet, particularly at food sources, with the male producing a loud cackle and the female a whistling call. Red wattlebirds utter two types of alarm calls, alternating between them while mobbing other animals. One is a harsh call over a wide frequency (1.3 to 5.9 kHz) that is louder at lower frequencies. The other is a lower pitched staccato call with a frequency of 1.1–2.2 kHz. The red wattlebird has become more common in some localities, such as the Sunraysia district in the 1960s, and Nambucca Heads and Lefevre Peninsula in the 1980s. Breeding numbers have increased in Sydney and Adelaide. The red wattlebird is a rare vagrant to New Zealand, with confirmed records at Matakana in 1865 and Rohutu, Taranaki, in 1885, and a third unconfirmed report from Motupiko in 1938. The red wattlebird appears to be a permanent resident in much of its range, though its movements are poorly known. It appears to be partly migratory in Western Australia and the north coast of New South Wales. In southeastern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, it appears to move to lower altitudes for winter. For instance, birds vacate the Brindabella Range over the cooler months. Open sclerophyll forest and woodland, generally dominated by eucalypts, is the most common habitat of the species. It is more common in forests with ample shrubby or grassy understory. It is less commonly encountered in shrubland, heath, or margins of wet sclerophyll forest. It is rarely found in mature pine plantations. Within urban areas, it is abundant in parks and reserves, gardens and golf courses, as well as orchards and vineyards. It occasionally ventures into subtropical, semi arid or subalpine regions, and has been found up to above sea level. The red wattlebird is rarer in forests that have been affected by dieback (infection by the pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi).

A loud and active bird, the red wattlebird is found in pairs, in a small family group, or alone during the breeding season, and gathers in larger groups of up to several hundred birds over winter. It flies straight or with a slightly undulating pattern, alternating between gliding and flapping its wings with quick shallow beats, at or slightly above the level of the tree canopy. The red wattlebird moves on the ground by hopping, cocking its tail upwards slightly. Aggressive and territorial, the red wattlebird defends its nest and sources of food against other birds. It either calls at, snaps at the tails of, or flies at other birds, sometimes scuffling with members of the same species or other large honeyeaters in the air. Displacement is a dominant display in which a red wattlebird will land on a perch that has been immediately vacated by another bird. A smaller red wattlebird adopts a horizontal appeasement posture side on to the aggressor in which it lowers its head, flutters its wings and edges closer to the other bird. As well as smaller bird species, red wattlebirds can mob and chase larger species, such as the Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), butcherbirds, currawongs, the black faced cuckooshrike (Coracina novaehollandiae), the olive backed oriole (Oriolus sagittatus), crows, ravens, the laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), and even small raptors like the collared sparrowhawk (Accipiter cirrocephalus).

The red wattlebird breeds throughout its range, with nesting taking place between July and December, though occasionally outside these months, if conditions are favourable. One or two broods are laid each year. Red wattlebirds generally nest as solitary pairs. The nest is a cup shaped structure formed from sticks and leaves, lined with bark, grass, and hair, between above ground, usually in the forked branches of a tree—generally a eucalypt. The nest is usually located centrally rather than on the periphery of a tree. A study in Eastwood State Forest, near Armidale in New South Wales, found that red wattlebirds preferred to nest in manna gum (Eucalyptus viminalis) and apple box (E. bridgesiana). They seldom look for food on the ground, though do so to feed on shrubs such as the cats paw (Anigozanthos humilis). The red wattlebird prioritises visiting flowers that produce a lot of nectar, such as those of eucalypts, banksias, grasstrees (Xanthorrhoea), and emu bushes (Eremophila). It often prefers plants with easy access to nectar, rather than those with tubular flowers (and thus difficult to access nectar). The species forages much more often in native than exotic plants, though the introduced coral tree (Erythrina) is popular. One field study found that red wattlebirds foraged for longer periods when nectar concentrations in flowers were low, and consumed fewer insects at this time. However, this could have been because the temperature was lower and hence insects were less active. In Gingin, Western Australia, 97% of red wattlebirds at a site of two mixed kangaroo paw species were observed feeding on a single species at its peak flowering: cats paw in August and red and green kangaroo paw (A. manglesii) in September, with very few visits to the other species or hybrids. The red wattlebird often forages alongside the New Holland honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae), little friarbird (P. citreogularis), western and little wattlebirds, rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus moluccanus), purple crowned lorikeet (Glossopsitta porphyrocephala), satin bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus), pied currawong (Strepera graculina), and crimson rosella (Platycercus elegans), though they generally chase other nectar feeding birds away from a horde of eucalypt flowers. A field study, conducted in winter 1978 on Kangaroo Island, found red wattlebirds to be territorial around a rich source of nectar, namely a large cup gum (Eucalyptus cosmophylla), driving off smaller honeyeaters. This indicated that the species would exclude other species, if food was scarce. In New England National Park, red wattlebirds would be more aggressive when there were moderate amounts of nectar in groves of flowering banksias, but were less so at lean or abundant times.

The nests of red wattlebirds are often parasitized by the pallid cuckoo (Cacomantis pallidus), and less commonly by the Pacific koel (Eudynamys orientalis). Nest predators include the brown goshawk (Accipiter fasciatus), black falcon (Falco subniger), pied currawong (Strepera graculina), Australian raven (Corvus coronoides), common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), domestic cat, and snakes. Isospora anthochaerae is an Apicomplexan parasite that has been isolated from the red wattlebird in Western Australia, from oocytes collected from faecal samples. Species of bird louse that have been recorded on the red wattlebird include Menacanthus eurysternus, and members of the genera Brueelia, Myrsidea and Philopterus.

Red wattlebirds are adversely impacted by land and undergrowth clearing, and have vanished from some habitats thus altered. Despite this, they are classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, as they occur over a wide range, have a large population, and the population decline is not rapid. Indeed, it was shot widely for food or sport, or because it was held to be a pest of vineyards or orchards. On occasion, red wattlebirds have raided vineyards and orchards for grapes, stone fruit, figs, olives, loquats, apples, pears, and berries, which they puncture and extract the juice or flesh from. The red wattlebird has been kept as an aviary bird in Sydney. It is not difficult to look after, but can be very aggressive to other cage birds. Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' is a useful companion shrub as it bears flowers all year round.

The title page of the issue has the year 1826.