Bellbird
Bellbird
Anthornis melanura melanura
Bellbirds are aptly named for their beautiful voice, similar to that of a tui, though perhaps with a purer tone and less elaborate songs. The Brook Waimarama Sanctuary is a great place to hear them and if you are lucky, you may catch sight of one. Both sexes are olive green, but the males can be distinguished by having purplish crowns and red eyes while the females have a white stripe under each eye and browner eyes.
Bellbirds and tui both belong to a family of birds called honeyeaters; they have brush-tipped tongues well adapted for extracting nectar from flowers and sipping the honeydew excreted by scale insects, which live primarily on beech trees. Other honeyeater species are found throughout Australia, the Pacific Islands and South East Asia, but bellbirds and tui are only found in New Zealand. They also eat fruit and invertebrates. Being nectar and fruit eaters, bellbirds play an important role in both pollination and seed dispersal of native trees.
When Europeans first arrived in New Zealand, bellbirds were common throughout the country, but unfortunately their numbers have since declined, especially in Northland, due to a combination of deforestation, competition with possums for nectar and possibly disease. They are found in both native and regenerating forests, pine forests and even urban gardens if suitable habitat is nearby. We are fortunate to have them in and around Nelson.
Bellbirds are largely solitary, except during breeding season. They usually mate with the same partner year after year and retain the same breeding territory. The female builds the deep bowl-shaped nests within shrubs, vines, creepers, crevices or the hollows of trees and usually within the vicinity of a flowering tree. She lays between 2-5 eggs in each clutch and incubates them alone. They hatch after 14 days. Both parents feed the chicks, initially nectar, but then as the chicks grow, insects and fruit. Two clutches may be laid within a breeding season.
