![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Possum_eating_egg___loop--d794f090-d38b-47b8-887c-58167437bc37-1.0.0000000.jpg\")
A brush-tailed possum bites into a shop-bought quail\u2019s egg sitting in an artificial nest <\/p>\nCaptured on one of Bianca McBryde\u2019s tree-mounted cameras, the brush-tailed possum crawls into the frame, lowers its head into the nest and bites into the egg.<\/p>\n
The snack was a shop-bought quail\u2019s egg and the nest was artificial \u2013 a crafty construction made of half a tennis ball, some brown paint and fibres from the husks of coconuts.<\/p>\n
But the interaction was a vital clue in the increasingly desperate efforts to stop Australia\u2019s critically endangered regent honeyeater from going extinct.<\/p>\n
McBryde wanted to know how often these native possums were likely taking the eggs of this striking Australian songbird.<\/p>\n
The answer was: not very often, but often enough to matter.<\/p>\n
A brush-tailed possum bites into a shop-bought quail\u2019s egg sitting in an artificial nest <\/p>\n
Over two weeks, possums raided only four of the 40 fake nests placed in trees at North Head in Sydney.<\/p>\n
As little as three decades ago when regent honeyeaters were far more common, such infrequent raids would have made little difference to the species.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s likely possums have always done this occasionally and it wouldn\u2019t have had an impact,\u201d says McBryde, a researcher at the University of Sydney.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe occasional egg here and there was probably just a part of the normal balance of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bianca McBryde setting up a tree camera. Photograph: Bianca McBrydeOne of 40 artificial nests Bianca McBryde established as part of her research. Photograph: Bianca McBryde<\/p>\n
But when McBryde fed her new data into a computer model, the affect of these occasional raids on the honeyeaters\u2019 prospects for survival was profound.<\/p>\n
If this happened in the small populations of honeyeaters that are clinging on today, McBryde\u2019s research<\/a> found the loss of just a few eggs to the opportunistic possums could increase their risk of extinction within 20 years by about 35%.<\/p>\n \u2018A uniquely Australian bird\u2019<\/p>\n Regent honeyeaters are one of Australia\u2019s most threatened birds, with fewer than 250 likely left in the wild restricted to three sites on the periphery of the Blue Mountains, to the west of Sydney.<\/p>\n Once seen in large and mobile flocks that would help pollinate eucalypt trees across vast distances, most of their woodland habitats have been lost to developments and farming.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re a uniquely Australian bird,\u201d says Mick Roderick, the regent honeyeater recovery adviser at BirdLife Australia, which alongside the Taronga Conservation<\/a> Society helped pay for McBryde\u2019s research.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can mimic the calls of other birds and it\u2019s the only honeyeater on Earth that can do this.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir strategy was to arrive at blossom events and chase other birds away. They\u2019re flocking strategy doesn\u2019t work any more. A flock might just be three birds.\u201d<\/p>\n That talent for mimicry is thought to be a symptom of the bird\u2019s demise because, with so few other male birds around them to learn from, regents are picking up the calls of other birds instead.<\/p>\n In a captive breeding program at Taronga Zoo, the full song is played to young males through speakers<\/a> so that when they are released they have a better chance of attracting a mate.<\/p>\n![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2182.jpg\")
How Australia’s regent honeyeaters are learning the wrong songs \u2013 video<\/p>\n