Definition of honeyeater in English:

noun

• An Australasian songbird with a long brushlike tongue for feeding on nectar.

  Family Meliphagidae: numerous species and genera

  Example sentences

  • ‘Being honeyeaters, black-eared miners will consume nectar, but most of their diet is insects that they find under the bark of mature mallee eucalypts.’
  • ‘Data on the foraging activities of honeyeaters were collected for each of the eight sites during four 45-minute sessions throughout the observation day.’
  • ‘What the indigenous people called this pretty bird I do not know, but today it is known as the Blue-faced honeyeater, or Entomyzon cyanotis.’
  • ‘Bell-birds and tuis - forest birds in the nectar-feeding family called honeyeaters - have brushlike tongues that enable them to lap up honeydew drops easily.’
  • ‘When we got to the island, we were most anxious to see the stitchbird, since this was the only place where we would encounter this unusual honeyeater.’
  • ‘Of those, three were cormorants and five were honeyeaters.’
  • ‘Based in luxurious beachside bungalows, and fed delicious fare such as linguini with local crab and coconut sauce, we shared the island with white-collared kingfishers and orange-breasted honeyeaters.’
  • ‘Still, bees are probably not as important to these mistletoes as native honeyeaters are, because the bees enter far fewer flowers.’
  • ‘Traditionally, C. marchei has been considered to be a honeyeater in the family Meliphagidae.’
  • ‘I say there's not a huge difference in planting banksias to attract honeyeaters to your garden and scattering some wild birdseed out for the finches.’
  • ‘My grandfather wanted to look through the book and quickly became enthralled by its colorful plates of whistlers, honeyeaters, parrots, pigeons, and doves.’
  • ‘Of the 170 species of honeyeaters in Australia and the Pacific Islands, only three - the tui, the bellbird, and the stitchbird (the latter surviving only on offshore islands) - are found in New Zealand.’