SPEAKER_03 0:00

I'd like to acknowledge the Wandru Warong people as the traditional owners of the land where this recording was made. Over the past few months, I've been walking through reserves around Melbourne, NAM, and recording conversations along the way. I've met with traditional owners and First Nations peoples, conservationists, ecologists, and others who've chosen a place that matters to them. We walk and talk about nature, what lives there, what's changed, and what needs protecting. You'll hear our footsteps, the wind in the trees, the birds overhead, and the city not too far away. This is finding Melbourne's nature. Not far from Melbourne is Yellingbow Nature Conservation Reserve, one of Victoria's most important conservation areas. Covering over 600 hectares of forests, swamps, and winding creek lines, is home to the last population of the Hellman and Honeybeer. And the lowlands landmakers of the reserve sits within the Lyric Barracks landscape conservation area, which means ancestors trailed. Habitat is being restored, creek lines are being reconnected right across the continent. Recovering a species like the Hellman and Honeybeater takes a huge people. Population exists today as a result of decades of intensive work from habitat restoration and predator control, captive breeding, genetic management and supplementary feeding. But when people talk about this work, one name comes up again and again. Bruce Quinn. He's synonymous with the bird. Bruce is a senior ornithologist who spent decades working to understand and protect this bird. Soft-spoken, deeply knowledgeable, highly respected and closely connected to this place, he's become one of the people most associated with its recovery. Today I'm joining Bruce as he visits the supplementary feeding station scattered throughout the reserve. As we walk the creek lines and swamps of Yellingbow, we talk about the landscape, the people behind the work, and what it takes to bring a species back from the brink. What was your first interest in birds?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Um, I think would have been in our early teens. We're certainly members of the Gould League.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

You and your brothers?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yes, yeah, mum and dad introduced us to that, and I think it was the Tiny Tips T, wasn't it, that uh used to have cards. Yeah. And uh the um then as time progressed, we both Darren and I uh my twin brother who works for BirdLife Australia, we um now um we were interested in um certainly natural history in general.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

If anything we're both a bit more interested in the mammal side of things, but then during my uh my honours and masters uh I chose projects that the then Victorian National Park Service felt needed doing, and uh so it was EMU's initially in the Grampians, which was a lot of fun and uh uh yeah, sorting through EMU poo to see what they'd been eating. And some habitat selection work, I guess, or habitat use work. But then the masters was on the turquoise parrot, which I had an absolute ball doing. It was uh it was a conservation-orientator probe check getting data for which would help manage its breeding and feeding requirements and um and and a little bit on um uh unplanned, but also their nocturnal roosting requirements, which we found a number of nocturnal roosts which we started a lot of what they were using, and so yeah, so that was great. And toward the end of that year, oh sorry that thesis I meant to say, um I I got my banding licence and uh and uh and that was working on Deborah Finch's uh a job which was very good for uh getting me ready for this job, a lot of hands-on colour banding, um egg measuring, uh morphometrics birds, um nest monitoring, so it was really good to get me uh sort of trained up for this job as well. Um it wasn't a conservation project that one, it was uh more about um uh proving laboratory studies still held in the wild for zebrafinches. So zebrafinches are um yeah, I don't see them much, I don't go to places where I see them much, but they're they're sort of close to my heart as well. Yeah, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

They're beautiful birds.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, they are.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

I asked Bruce when he first got involved with helmeted honey eater.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Uh it was August 1993. Wow. So I'm in my 33rd year. 33 years. Yes, and and as said earlier, I still feel highly privileged and excited, and and uh yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

If you're wondering what the helmeted honey eater looks like, it's bright yellow with a black mask and a little tough to feathers for a helmet.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

But the lyric barring program was really the brainchild of a former president of the Friends of the Helmet and Honey Eater, uh Bob Anderson and uh and also uh Jeff Latter, who's an environmental consultant, and uh uh putting a proposal to having all uh crown land along creeks and uh uh creeks and ridders and within this area. Uh and the I suppose the mid year, I suppose we'd call it, become conservation orientated rather than grazing or land for instance. So um and that's what Lyric Barron's doing, and converting all those parcels of land to a have a conservation orientation, um so uh stock removal and uh uh uh fencing, re-vegetation, and um and that'll create corridors for uh hominid honey eaters but also other species to uh to uh uh move along and also creating habitat to uh larger parcels of land where say hominid honeyeaters um and for that matter the lowland lead beaters possum can sort of permanently occupy, they get connected as well, and uh the work that we do here in Yellingbow or all the habitat restoration by those organisations, plus Lyric Bowering is helping a multitude of species as well as the plants themselves and the plant communities and uh but uh former species as well. So it was a wonderful concept by by uh Bob and Jeff, and uh which led to the Lyric Barring program.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

So and two critically endangered species here sharing the same habitat in isolated populations that used to occur further around Melbourne. Is it all related to the habitat that's here?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Well yes it is, yeah. So uh and Dan Harley from Dr. Dan Harley from Zoo's Victoria. Yeah, uh yes, he's um so Dan did his PhD on the Loneland Lead beaters possums here. Um and uh yeah they're mostly uh confined within the reserve to the Eucalyptus camp for the sedge-rich eucalyptus camphora swamp community. Yeah. Holman honeyers use that. Um that's been the one the habitat that's been unfortunately a lot of it is in decline, habitat condition decline. Holman honeyers also use manigum habitat, and I guess that's what's helped the helmet and honey eaters out more than the lowland med beaters, is they've got the other type of habitat which they can occupy, which has been more stable with respect to its health than the uh the siege-rich eclipse camp for a swamp community.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

That's the helmeted honey eater flies. It's not that far from the city here, is it really?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Like it's uh no, it's not. It's it's uh I think we're about it's something like 55 kilometres from C BD. Which is amazing. Oh yeah. I thought I could hear beating there.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

We're about just straight up over. Oh, it just flew over here. Yep. Oh wow, we're straight on to helmeted honey eaters.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Oh, it's safe. We walk to the station, they'll come to the station, so just down here.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

We're now looking at four helmeted honey eaters on a branch. Gosh, absolutely wonderful. Is that pretty common?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Pretty common. Critically endangered, but we've got a little little group who are hopefully following us. Are they following us? We don't know if they know about this new station, so we'll just keep walking, hoping they'll follow us to the new station.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Uh so you recognise that call so well.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yes, it was that they were doing a corroborey. Oh, actually, there's a bird down here, I think. Yep, yep, waiting for us. Okay. Yes. Do they do corroborey? Yeah, corrobore, it's sort of like a social greeting and uh where there's uh there's wing quivering, the soft uh well, I call it a chip call. Yep. And also here it is here, Ben. So there we go.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

So um as we've filled that up, birds have suddenly appeared. I I get a massive thrill, even though I've seen them a few times, I still get a thrill out of it. Do you?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah, absolutely, yes, yes. It's I'll never ever stop getting a thrill and a privilege out of seeing them.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

So when you feed them you then observe, do you?

SPEAKER_00 10:42

We're looking, we're not only looking at the birds for their health, yeah. Uh any injuries or illnesses, but we're also looking at the leg bands because each one is individually colour band, so they are an individual to us.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

And uh so you know all the birds at an individual level?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yes, that's correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for most of them we know their origins, so we know their pedigree and and and uh we call it the genotype, whether they're a uh full-blooded helmet honey, or whether there's some genetic uh variability being added by the the uh the genetic rescue program that's uh using yellow-tufted honey to give Slanticus subspecies genes.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

So these ones that we're seeing here today, are they have they been released here or are they wild birds?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Uh it's probably a mixture of both, but because they haven't stayed, haven't quite identified their leg bands. But I think if we go to this station down here, sure, we'll uh we'll uh hopefully we might actually get a closer look at uh at them or longer look so that we can actually see the the leg bands.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

So uh is there any difference in the core between the Gipslandica and the not really, no.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Maybe if you put it on a sonogram there might be something slightly different, but to my ears it's it is the same. Yeah, okay. Up here there's um a sort of mid-canopy. Okay. Yeah, so that's good to know that they're using these new stations. Is it trial and error when you put a new station out or do you know do you sort of work out a specific in the appropriate habitat with dense shrubbery so that there's protection for them when they're going to a station or if they need to flush because of danger, they've got something to go to, you know, close cover to go to.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

So can you recognise all the bird calls that are happening at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Uh uh yeah, I'd like to think I could recognise most of them very readily. Every now and then there's certainly some that I have to have to think a little bit about. And uh that's that's one of the helmet honey eaters calling now. But we've got white-eared honey eaters calling. There was a bell minor calling a bit earlier on, which was a little bit of a worry because we know the uh if their numbers build up they can displace helmet and honey eaters because of the being territorial and aggressive.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

So they're actually a threat, are they? Yes, they are. Yeah. Is the helmet and honey eater the one that goes, that one? Or is that?

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Uh yeah, that was the alarm call just did did happen then. But uh the the there was a there's a harsh call which is said to be uh was described as being T S U P. To my ears it's more like a chup.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Uh that's a sort of like a contact call. Uh we heard the soft uh um chip calls of the carroby when we first got here. Is it the only bird that has a carrobbery with a collective uh no, actually New Holland honey eaters and also noisy miners have carrobberies? In some ways, the behaviour of the Holman honey eater, or in many ways I should say, the behaviour of the Holman honey eater is very similar to noisy miner behaviour as well. The the carrobbery, the uh the the bull gaping during aggression. Um the uh nest flight displays that helmeted honeyers sometimes do, not always, but noisy miners quite often do the display where they're almost flying. The bodies are almost at 45 degrees rather than being say horizontal. Helmet honeys do do it at times too, so two helmeted honey eaters.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Three helmeted honey eaters have just emerged.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Are they there's one there?

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Is there the other two three over here and one there? Okay, let's hope they'll come down and not try to think of a good way to describe them, they're kind of a medium-sized bird, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yes, yeah, they're yeah, I'd say medium. Um yeah, they they're obviously not as small as thornbills, but they're um uh but but big, uh they're not as big as a black bird. But you can see this dense shrubbery, which is prickly currant bushes, really good for them in terms of cover nesting in, and also the berries are eaten as uh eaten when when they're the red berries. So uh do you think they've become so endangered because a lot of that sort of habitat's been lost that look like it's yeah absolutely yeah, so it's it's been being uh streamside and swamp habitat, it's it's prime sort of grazing agricultural land, and uh so a lot of it's been cleared across the former range of the Holmeted honey eater and uh the uh um yeah, and even within Yellingbo, even though it's a reserve, we're seeing the impacts, um channelisation of the creeks uh and uh uh planting of of pasture grasses in the past, and um that's causing big issues within the actual swamp habitat because it needs a particular regime to survive and regenerate itself. We're actually seeing dieback uh uh or in fact since 1992 there's been dieback happening within the swamp habitat. This managum, and that's the mountain swamp gum habitat, uh which is regarded as nationally significant, siege-rich eucalyptus came for a swamp habitat. Um uh whereas what we're in now is more the your your classic streamside habitat uh dominated by um managum, Eucalyptus feminalis. Uh there's some swamp gum, and in in lower-lying depression areas, there's uh there's also some mountain swamp gum. Um within Yellingbow, the um the uh the manor gum habitat has been far more stable as in the condition of it. Um stable than the mountain swamp gum habitat. Um, which needs a particular flooding regime uh to um to survive and regenerate itself, but too much or too little water leads to habitat condition decline.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

And where did they used to occur? Where was the former extent?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Uh yeah, the the former range um was West Skipps Land Um uh and north to Healsville uh and then west to uh to Lilydale and then the sort of the southwest corner of the range was the uh sort of the upper Beaconsfield buried area. So um but now there's only really uh this is the last naturally occurring population but heavily managed to for it's uh to keep to keep it going and and to build uh build the numbers but all and also to add genetic diversity. Zoos Victoria manage a population in in the Yarrow Ranges National Park area and also um recreating a population in in the Cardinal Creek area as in the release of um birds from captivity in early May this year. So uh that's uh in its very early stages though, and uh bird releases from captivity will happen there um uh next autumn. Yeah, so there's really only uh three areas that they're they now occur in the wild. Uh the young bale, the last naturally occurring population, and then two um recreated uh populations. Yeah, sorry, Ash Wednesday really led to the demise of the um the the cockatoo and upper Beaconsfield populations.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

So they held in right up until Ash Wednesday in 83.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yes, they were still at both Cockatoo and Upper Beaconsfield.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

So how many birds are left in the wild now?

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Yeah, so we we feel there's about it will be if you've add the three uh populations together, it's still only about 230 birds. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

So uh and that's global population, that's everything.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Yes, in the wild.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

In the wild, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

And then there's there's the captive population, which is where the really the genetic rescue was initiated um in captivity via the the crossing of the two subspecies.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Um the uh and then birds were released out here and then into that Yarra Rangers area that I was talking about, and uh uh and also now Cardinia Creek. Here we go, we've got birds right next to us around to us.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

And that shades the call well. Just putting in the wombaroo, is it?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Yeah, this is the wombaroo, the the honey eater and lorikeet mixture, yeah. Which has got it's obviously got sugars in it, but it's also got vitamins and uh and uh oops, sorry, flying right up to your hands. Yeah, we might uh get out here. We'll step back again and just these two birds in there are 2022 release birds. The one that's begging, because he's more subordinate, is a 2025 release bird, the one that's that's that's left at the station.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

So that's a begging call, is it?

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

And is he saying please let me get some food?

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he's he's acting submissive and uh hoping to reduce the aggression. Yeah, right. Oh that's a gosh calling, that's why the the alarm calls of and that and that bird suddenly decided to Would they prey on a helmet at time yet? Yeah, they do, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Yeah, so the need for the Gippslandicus the g the genetic rescue is because they the the current He Hope. Population doesn't have enough genetics.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah, there was inbreeding depression, so we're trying to reverse that by adding genetic diversity, by adding uh Gipslandicus genes to the uh the hominhone population.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

And if you didn't do that, would they just bottleneck and go extinct?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Absolutely, yeah. And uh an easy way to think of it is um that the uh the the most inbred birds were only producing about a tenth of the number of fledglings across their life span as the most genetically diverse Holman Honeyaters were. So that's the the um the effect the inbreeding was having. So that's that was within the Holbert and Honeyder population pre-genetic rescue, which commenced here in uh in uh September 2019 when um captive bred birds and Gipslanticus were released into uh into Yellingbow.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Bruce told me a little bit about how insects and plants are important food for helmet honey eaters.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Insects can create sugary exudates, um the uh the lerp, the sugary coating on the on the uh on the larvae of those uh cillid insects they're called, the family of psyllid insects, um, the uh honeydew, which I my understanding is it's a waste product from an insect that's again been taking eucalypt uh phlowem sap. And uh then there's the manna, which which we see them use from manna gums, swamp gums, mountain swamp gums. There's sort of this little secretion produced uh in response to insect attack.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

So um, yeah, so it's like a dripping of sap sort of thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yes, yeah, it's uh it's a reasonably viscous liquid. Yeah. That uh I have admit I've sampled it myself, I can see why the honey eaters like it. It's pretty good, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

So uh um is there a future market in Manor?

SPEAKER_00 24:22

There could well be, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

What's what's the lowest the bird's number got to?

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Uh yeah, 60 on two separate occasions. Yeah, so here we go, we've through here, through the through the the dense shrubbery or the classic nesting habitat.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

It's quite tough to weigh this one.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Um yeah, so dense shrubbery is needed for their uh really needed, uh at least here at Yellingba, well I suppose anywhere, but it works well here because of the it conceals the nests. Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

Before we finish up, it's worth saying that everything you've heard about the species in this episode is because of a huge amount of work behind the scenes of people trying to protect them. The recovery of the helmeted honey eater and the lowland lead beaters possum is a genuinely collective effort. It involves agencies like Dika, Zeus Victoria, Parks Victoria, Melbourne Water, and the amazing Friends of the Helmeted Honey Eater, a great group, along with researchers, volunteers, friends of the lead beaters' possum, local landholders who all work together over decades to keep these species alive in the landscape. There's been incredible support from so many groups, including the Judith Early Safes Wildlife Fund, who helped secure one of the properties that we recorded this episode on. Bruce is an amazing person. He's done so much work in this field, and he understands the birds better than anyone, I dare say. Thank you for joining us, and let's say goodbye to Bruce and thank him for all his efforts.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

You're most welcome, Ben. It's been a privilege to be interviewed by you and have you accompany me and uh and uh see the habitat and the birds and uh and uh yes, I'll I'll I'm I'm just uh I'm just uh uh thrilled that I've been able to uh have it today and show you today what we've been doing and uh but also uh talk about the private room.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Just a few months after recording this, Bruce ended up retiring a senior ornithologist. But don't worry, he's not lost from the bird world, he's still out there doing lots of birding and volunteering regularly with the Helmeted Honey Eaters. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you want to hear more episodes, check out finding Melbourne'sNature.com or check us out on your favourite streaming services. Also, keen to hear your feedback and keen to hear where you think I should head next. Thanks so much for listening. It's been a pleasure to spend some time with you. Until the next walk