New Children’s Book Highlights the Plight of the Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater and Celebrates the Beauty of Australia’s Box-Ironbark Woodlands
New Children’s Book Highlights the Plight of the Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater and Celebrates the Beauty of Australia’s Box-Ironbark Woodlands
A new children’s book, Sunny Finds His Song, shines a spotlight on the Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater. This is the third collaboration between author Cate Storey and illustrator Sarah Matsuda, and the first children’s book by co-author Penny Watson.
The book will be officially launched at 6pm on Friday, 30 August, at the Robyn Bauer Studio Gallery, 54 Latrobe Terrace, Paddington, QLD 4064. The event will also feature an exhibition of Sarah Matsuda’s original illustrations, which will run from Saturday, 31 August, to Saturday, 7 September. Gallery opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm.
Cate explains that the original story idea came from press coverage about Regent Honeyeater song-learning, which led the authors to articles published as part of Dr Ross Crates doctoral thesis. The authors extend their gratitude to Dr Crates not only for inspiring the story but for raising awareness about the Regent Honeyeater’s plight.
Regent Honeyeaters once flew in flocks across a range extending from Adelaide to Gladstone. However, habitat clearance has led the species to the brink of extinction, with only 300 birds remaining in the wild.
Illustration from Sunny Finds His Song, written by Cate Storey and Penny Watson and illustrated by Sarah Matsuda
Regent Honeyeaters have a species-specific song which older male birds teach to older male birds. Learning this song is crucial for attracting mates and defending territory. Regent Honeyeaters do not learn their song from fathers. Regent Honeyeater fathers remaining quiet during nesting to avoid predators, and the song-learning period only starts once young have left the nest area. As a result, young birds must find other tutors. With the population critically low, many young birds struggle to learn their song, sometimes imitating other bird species instead.
As it becomes harder and harder to pass the song between generations, the species-specific song is getting shorter and simpler over time. This process is referred to by Dr Crates as the loss of Regent Honeyeater song culture and is a significant challenge to the species survival.
Illustration from Sunny Finds His Song, written by Cate Storey and Penny Watson and illustrated by Sarah Matsuda
Sunny Finds His Song, follows Sunny, a lonely Regent Honeyeater struggling to find others of his kind. Cate describes how the scientific backdrop of Regent Honeyeater song-learning provided the perfect setting for a gentle coming-of-age story. Despite the serious environmental themes, Sunny’s journey ultimately ends happily. He finds a singing teacher, a band of birds, and eventually, a mate named Goldie. Goldie’s leg bands reference real-life efforts to save the species through captive breeding and release programmes.
The book also highlights the importance of preserving habitats and feeding grounds for nectar-feeding birds. Regent Honeyeaters, nomadic in search of gum blossoms, are particularly associated with the often-overlooked box-ironbark woodlands. These woodlands are biodiversity hotspots, crucial for many species, including Regent Honeyeaters and Swift Parrots.
Illustration from Sunny Finds His Song, written by Cate Storey and Penny Watson and illustrated by Sarah Matsuda
Australia has lost 70% of its temperate eucalypt woodlands. Box-ironbark country is also gold country. During the gold rush in the mid-1800s, box-ironbark woodlands were dug up in search of gold. Trees were cut down and used for building materials or were burned as firewood. After the gold rush, box-ironbark country continued to be cleared for firewood, farms and houses.
Woodlands on the fertile soil most suitable for farming were quickly cleared. Remaining woodlands now occur in less fertile places, where eucalypt trees grow more slowly and provide a less predictable supply of nectar. Older trees also provide a more predictable nectar source, and the amount of nectar they produce within a small space cannot be replaced by smaller and younger trees.
Cate, Penny, and Sarah hope that the story will get families talking about the value and importance of Australia’s eucalypt woodlands. “Because these woodlands once dominated our landscape, many of our species have evolved to depend on them, and I think woodlands are often overlooked when we think of habitat conservation,” Cate explains. She goes on to suggest, “The next time you are travelling, have a look out of your car window and observe what areas have been cleared and what remains. Of course, fertile plains have been mostly replaced by farmland because of their value for growing crops and grazing. But it was the very trees that grew on these fertile plains that produced the most reliable nectar supply.”
Illustration from Sunny Finds His Song, written by Cate Storey and Penny Watson and illustrated by Sarah Matsuda
Cate also explains that intact and healthy box-ironbark woodlands are a delight for wildflower enthusiasts, with many wildflower treasures waiting to be discovered in the understory, such as native orchids and native pea flowers. These unique Australian wildflowers have been celebrated in Sarah Matsuda’s illustrations.
Cate, Penny, and Sarah would also like to acknowledge Mick Roderick, Woodland Bird Program Manager at Birdlife Australia; Allison Beutel and Jordan Mountney from Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary; Dr. Daniel Appleby and Sara Petrovic for sharing their knowledge on the Regent Honeyeater; as well as Quentin Bel, Sue Brunskill, and Karen Retra for sharing their knowledge of Victorian wildflowers. A special thank you also to Mick Atzeni for recently taking Cate to see her first Regent Honeyeater in the wild, and Deb Metters for cultivating Cate and Penny’s love of birds.
Cover Image Sunny Finds His Song, written by Cate Storey and Penny Watson and illustrated by Sarah Matsuda
The Greater Glider: Gliding, Fluffy and Gorgeous!
Greater gliders are uniquely Australian, gliding marsupials that live in hollows in tall eucalypt trees. I’m starting the week with some interesting greater glider facts to share with your friends, family or school.
Illustration from The Perfect Hollow: A Greater Glider Story, Author: Cate Storey, Illustrator, Sarah Matsuda, published by Wet Season Books.
Greater gliders are uniquely Australian, gliding marsupials that live in hollows in tall eucalypt trees. I’m starting the week with some interesting greater glider facts to share with your friends, family or school.
1. Gum-leaf eaters
Like the iconic koala, the greater glider is a gum-leaf-eater and has favourite feed trees, including the lemon scented gum (Corymbia citriodora), grey box (Eucalyptus moluccana) and forest red gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis).
2. Hollow dependant
Eating gum leaves can make you slow and sleepy. Rather than depending on speed to escape danger, greater gliders rely on a network of familiar den trees to quickly hide from predators.
Illustration from The Perfect Hollow: A Greater Glider Story, Author: Cate Storey, Illustrator, Sarah Matsuda, published by Wet Season Books.
3. Not just any tree
Greater gliders reside high in the canopy. They prefer to feed from trees with a diameter greater than 30cm (about the size of an adult hug) and live in hollows in trees with a diameter greater than 50cm. An individual glider uses between 4 and 18 den sites, within small home ranges of approximately 1.5 hectares. This means gliders need quality habitat, with many mature hollow-bearing trees. With hollows often taking over 100 years to form, greater gliders are very vulnerable to habitat loss from logging, development and intense bushfires.
4. Very rare
Once widespread across Eastern Australia, greater gliders had no listing under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) only six years ago. In 2016 they were listed as Vulnerable (to extinction) and this year this listing was updated to Endangered. Research published in The Conversationfound that after the greater glider was listed as Vulnerable, destruction of its habitat actually increased in some states. For many, the greater glider has become a symbol of Australia’s failing environmental laws.
Illustration from The Perfect Hollow: A Greater Glider Story, Author: Cate Storey, Illustrator, Sarah Matsuda, published by Wet Season Books.
5. Vulnerable to a heating climate
Greater gliders’ physiology and eucalypt diet makes them vulnerable to higher temperatures and extreme weather events, specifically a greater number of nights above 20 degrees C and prolonged drought. Greater gliders also need appropriately insulated hollows, which can be hard to replace with man-made alternatives.
Along with the threat posed by logging and clearing for development, more severe storms, droughts, and intense bushfires driven by climate change, mean a loss of hollow bearing trees.
One of the most harrowing images emerging from the 2020 bushfires was of scared greater gliders, attempting to flee and becoming tangled in barbed wire fencing, which is particularly hazardous to Australia’s gliding marsupials.
Illustration from The Perfect Hollow: A Greater Glider Story, Author: Cate Storey, Illustrator, Sarah Matsuda, published by Wet Season Books.
6. People like you are fighting to protect them
On Sunday night, 2 October 2022, 66 citizen scientists conducted a nocturnal survey of 12 areas identified on the Victorian government’s current timber harvesting plan or its proposed plan. They found 60 greater gliders! The findings of the night survey should now trigger the terms of a temporary court injunction to prevent logging in the 12 areas where the greater gliders were found.
Kinglake Friends of the Forest (KFF) and Environment East Gippsland (EEG) have an ongoing case against government owned logging company VicForests, in that state’s Supreme Court. KFF and EEG believe VicForests has failed to properly survey for threatened species, including the greater glider and yellow-bellied glider.
Illustration from The Perfect Hollow: A Greater Glider Story, Author: Cate Storey, Illustrator, Sarah Matsuda, published by Wet Season Books.
7. Detection dogs
Finding greater gliders in no easy task. Residing high in the canopy, greater gliders can be challenging to detect through traditional spotlighting surveys. The insulation provided by their fluffy fur also makes them difficult to find using thermal imaging, often used to detect koalas.
Detection dogs have come to the rescue. Trained to sniff out the greater glider’s scats (poo), much smaller than possum scats, detection dogs can help identify where spotlighting efforts should focus.
The more data we have on greater gliders and where they can be found, the greater our opportunity to protect this unique Australian treasure.
Illustration from The Perfect Hollow: A Greater Glider Story, Author: Cate Storey, Illustrator, Sarah Matsuda, published by Wet Season Books.
8. Their habitats may be closer than you think
Greater gliders have been found in bushland close to (and sometimes within) Australia’s east coast capital cities (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne). This means that development decisions within our local government areas can have direct impacts on the animal’s survival.
9. Three distinct species
Once considered a single species, recent research has revealed that northern, central and southern greater glider populations are genetically distinct and should be separated into three different species: Petauroides minor, Petauroides armillatus and Petauroides volans.
Illustration from The Perfect Hollow: A Greater Glider Story, Author: Cate Storey, Illustrator, Sarah Matsuda, published by Wet Season Books.
10. Gliding, fluffy, gorgeous but not well known
Greater gliders are Australia’s largest gliding marsupial. Their gliding membrane extends from their elbows to their ankles. They can glide up to 100m and use their tail to steer as they glide between trees. Their fluffy, thick fur is found in a range of colours from deep brown to almost white.
Despite their obvious charm, greater gliders are far less familiar than Australia’s most famous gum-leaf eater, the koala, or the sweet as pie sugar glider. Once people get to know them, they have no trouble winning hearts and minds.
Like many Australia’s rare mammals, raising their profile is important for ensuring their future protection.
"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught" (Baba Dioum, 1968.)
Cover Image: The Perfect Hollow: A Greater Glider Story, Author: Cate Storey, Illustrator, Sarah Matsuda, published by Wet Season Books.
About the author of this blog:
Cate Storey is a children’s author and founder of Wet Season Books. Cate writes stories that celebrate Australia’s unique landscapes, wildlife and ecology. Her second book, The Perfect Hollow, illustrated by Sarah Matsuda, follows one greater glider’s search for the perfect hollow, with some scary, hairy and amusing adventures along the way.