Conservationists hopeful after flocks of regent honeyeaters appear in NSW

The regent honeyeater, a species with as few as 250 members left in the wild, has been documented north of Woolgoolga and in western Lake Macquarie by Birdlife Australia and Australian National University.

Birdlife Australia woodland program manager Mick Roderick said researchers had documented 12 birds at Lake Macquarie, the largest flock seen at the location since 2011.

"And the site north of Woolgoolga is a new one, so it's exciting that we've found two birds there," he said.

None of the birds were tagged, meaning surveyors likely hadn't encountered them before.

"It's always exciting to see birds with bands because you get data but as far as recovery is concerned, it's always better to see new ones," Mr Roderick said.

This comes after researchers were unable to find any regent honeyeater nests last breeding season.

Mr Roderick said survey teams had checked an extensive range of places with 1200 sites from northeast Victoria to southeast Queensland.

"We covered those sites twice in the breeding season. We literally found two birds across 2400 surveys and they disappeared a few days after," he said.

The regent honeyeater has suffered severe habitat loss with 80 to 85 per cent of the country's temperate woodlands lost since colonisation.

"If you look at Google Earth, there's a lot of bush but it's mostly along the spur of the great dividing range," Mr Roderick said.

"There isn't a lot of forest left on the coastal flood plains and inland slopes, it was all cleared for agriculture."

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While many other birds share this environment, Mr Roderick said regent honeyeaters were especially susceptible to habitat loss, although researchers weren't entirely sure why.

"We think that it's probably to do with their lifestyle - they're very mobile and don't stay in one place for too long," he said.

"They move around the state looking for these really high-yielding trees and those trees traditionally occurred in forests that have been lost.

"You can imagine a very mobile bird looking for the best patches and finding that they're gone."

Australian Conservation Foundation's Jess Abrahams said the species was still being devastated by deforestation.

"It's death by 1000 cuts, a bit of forest here and there but the result is that habitat destruction for this species and so many others is really what is driving the extinction crisis that we're facing," he said.

"Unless we protect their habitat and restore the damage that's been done, species like the regent honeyeater will be extinct in the short term."

Mr Abrahams said spotting the bird in the wild was "like finding a needle in a haystack".

"While there's very promising signs that there's been some spotted on the east coast, the overall trajectory for this bird is terrible," he said.

"The federal government has made a really admirable commitment to no new extinctions, and the test of these laws is that critical habitats must be protected."

Mr Abrahams said the federal government needed to significantly increase funding for conservation efforts.

"It's declined more than 40 per cent since 2013, we need to dramatically turn that around," he said.

"One estimate from scientists was a figure of $1.6 billion needed each year to recover Australia's threatened species and the current funding falls well short of that."

While teams have put up tree guards to prevent possums from getting to regent honeyeater nests, Mr Roderick said Birdlife Australia and ANU staff couldn't cover everywhere.

"We need birdwatchers and other citizen scientists to help," he said.

Anyone who had seen a regent honeyeater in the wild should report it to woodlandbirds@birdlife.org.au