{"id":219024,"date":"2026-01-03T22:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/219024\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T22:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:27:11","slug":"scientists-landowners-working-on-tasmanias-bruny-island-to-help-forty-spotted-pardalote-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/219024\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists, landowners working on Tasmania’s Bruny Island to help forty-spotted pardalote species"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donning a helmet and a well-equipped harness, Dr Fernanda Alves looks like she is set to take on an extreme sport.<\/p>\n

Instead, she is scaling white gums on Bruny Island to check nesting boxes for a tiny and very rare bird.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The forty-spotted pardalote species is found nowhere else in the world. (Supplied: Fernanda Alves de Amorim)<\/p>\n

The forty-spotted pardalote weighs just 10 grams and is endemic to Tasmania.<\/p>\n

Forty-spotted pardalotes used to be found in forests along the state’s east coast.<\/p>\n

Their numbers are much smaller now \u2014 around 1,000 \u2014 and the main populations are only on Maria and Bruny Islands.<\/p>\n

Dr Alves works with the Australian National University’s Difficult Bird Research Group.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Dr Fernanda Alves. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)<\/p>\n

Inside the mission to save the rare forty-spotted pardalote<\/a><\/p>\n

The forty-spotted pardalote is a small, rare bird, unique to Tasmania. It is thought there could be less than 1,000 left. But one young scientist believes the key to their survival lies in\u00a0one of Australia’s most iconic trees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Alves said the tiny forty-spotted pardalote relied on white gums and had a clever skill, being the only Australian bird known to farm their own food.<\/p>\n

“They have a little hook on their beak,” she said.<\/p>\n

“And they can make incisions on the leaves of white gums so the white gums will produce extra manna, which is like a sugary exudate that they use to feed themselves and feed the chicks.”<\/p>\n

\"Forty<\/p>\n

A forty-spotted pardalote near a white gum on Bruny Island. (Supplied: Fernanda Alves de Amorim)<\/p>\n

White gum numbers have also reduced.<\/p>\n

“The main threat [to the forty-spotted pardalote] is habitat clearing; once that habitat is gone, then there’s nothing you can do,” Dr Alves said.<\/p>\n

A 10-year national recovery plan aims to reduce threats to the species and increase its numbers.<\/p>\n

Another threat is a native parasitic fly that infests pardalote nests and paralyses chicks.<\/p>\n

“Infestation can be really bad, if it’s in high numbers, the whole brood will die within three days,” Dr Alves said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A forty-spotted pardalote chick with a parasite. (Supplied: Fernanda Alves de Amorim)<\/p>\n

A former PhD student trialled spraying the nests with bird-safe insecticide to kill the parasite.<\/p>\n

Dr Alves said it was effective.<\/p>\n

“But when I started my PhD, we wanted to transfer some of the work to the birds because it’s really hard to climb trees to get to some of the natural hollows,” she said.<\/p>\n

“So, I had this idea to set up what we call a feather dispenser.”\"Forty-spotted<\/p>\n

A forty-spotted pardalote holds a feather. (Supplied: Dean Hohn)<\/p>\n

Pardalotes line their nests with soft material, usually feathers.<\/p>\n

To make the feather dispensers, specially made cages are filled with sterilised chicken feathers sprayed with the insecticide and hung in areas where the pardalote is known to nest.<\/p>\n

The birds can collect the feathers to use as nesting material.<\/p>\n

\"Bald<\/p>\n

Forty-spotted pardalote chicks are particularly vulnerable. (Supplied: Fernanda Alves de Amorim)<\/p>\n

It has proven successful.<\/p>\n

“They had a 98 per cent survival of the chicks,” Dr Alves said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a temporary way to mitigate the problem, to buy us time to learn more about the parasitic fly and maybe come up with other ideas to maybe help the pardalotes.”<\/p>\n

They are now expanding the use of the feather dispensers across north Bruny Island.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Scientists are using “feather dispensers” to provide insecticide-sprayed chicken feathers for the pardalotes to use as nesting material. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

The species relies on the eucalyptus viminalis, also known as white gum tree. (ABC News: Selina Bryan)<\/p>\n

Working to protect white gums<\/p>\n

Protecting forty-spotted pardalotes is part of NRM South’s five-year Biodiverse Bruny Island project.<\/p>\n

Program coordinator Cat Young said in areas with few white gums, forty-spotted pardalotes can be bullied by other bird species, including the more common striated pardalotes.<\/p>\n

“Whereas if you have a big area of healthy white gums, you have more birds in the area and they seem to be able to hold their ground a little bit better,” she said.\"Two<\/p>\n

Nathalie Laurence (left) with Dr Fernanda Alves on Bruny Island. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)<\/p>\n

This tiny bird species is quietly going extinct<\/a><\/p>\n

They are tiny, energetic and might be seen chasing their insect dinner in the forest canopy \u2014 that is, if you are extremely lucky enough to see one. There are fewer than 1,000 left in the wild.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As part of the project, NRM South is working with the Bruny Island Environment Network and landowners to plant out white gums, in the hope of better connecting the patchy populations of forty-spotted pardalotes.<\/p>\n

“So much of Bruny Island is privately owned and so having landholders who care about animals and the wildlife is key, really, to the success of the project,” Dr Young said.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, members of the Bruny Island community have also been encouraged to make and install nesting boxes.<\/p>\n

“The nesting boxes have been really successful and the forty-spotted pardalotes really love them and they seem to even use them over natural habitats sometimes,” Dr Young said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A forty-spotted pardalote on a nesting box on Bruny Island, Tasmania, October 17, 2015. (Supplied: Fernanda Alves de Amorim)<\/p>\n

After learning more about the birds’ behaviour, researchers are asking people to pause putting them out while the design is adjusted.<\/p>\n

They first reduced the hole size to exclude tree martins.<\/p>\n

Now they are working on keeping out the more common striated pardalote.<\/p>\n

“We are hoping that by the end of this season we should be able to know because we have many boxes being occupied by them,” Dr Alves said.<\/p>\n

\"Forty<\/p>\n

Forty-spotted pardalote eggs. (Supplied: Fernanda Alves de Amorim)<\/p>\n

Dr Young said anyone with an existing nesting box should keep an eye on it.<\/p>\n

“It’s really important if you’re doing an action like this \u2026 that you make sure your action is having the right consequences and not actually having an unintended negative effect on the species you’re trying to help,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donning a helmet and a well-equipped harness, Dr Fernanda Alves looks like she is set to take on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[120995,120991,14179,120989,242,120993,120990,85,46,120992,43900,120994,141,120996],"class_list":{"0":"post-219024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-40-spotted","9":"tag-bird-protection","10":"tag-birds","11":"tag-bruny-island","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-feather-dispenser","14":"tag-forty-spotted-pardalote","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-nrm-south","18":"tag-parasite","19":"tag-pardalote","20":"tag-science","21":"tag-white-gum"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}