Mistletoe is often associated with Christmas, yet native mistletoe is something of an unsung hero when it comes to woodland birds.
It provides food, shelter, and nest sites, including for the critically endangered regent honeyeater, but repeated bushfires in recent years have wiped it out from a key breeding area in New South Wales' Lower Hunter region.
Mistletoe does not regenerate after bushfires and, without intervention, it will take many years to re-establish in the Tomalpin Woodlands — time the regent honeyeater does not have, as there are only about 300 left in the wild.
Hoping to "fast-track" the restoration of mistletoe and boost the regent honeyeaters' chances of survival, Birdlife Australia (BA) has partnered with the Mindaribba Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) in a seed-planting project.
"It's really exciting work. As far as we know this is a world first," BA NSW Woodland Bird program manager Mick Roderick said.
"Waiting for [the seed-spreading] birds to go off somewhere else, eat mistletoe and bring it back, could take at least 30 years and we don't have that much time."
Mistletoe relies on a host plant to survive and there are 97 different species across Australia.
Planting mistletoe in treetops
NSW Woodland Bird project officer Kristy Peters said the project, which was launched a few years ago, was very hands-on.
"The idea started from a project that Professor David Watson and his team at Charles Sturt University had been working on with the City of Melbourne, where they had been planting mistletoe into trees in Melbourne to boost biodiversity in urban areas," she said.
"We have a team of arborists who climb into the treetops and pick the mistletoe fruit from the canopy for us.
"Then you need to squeeze the ripe fruit out, and it has this sticky coating over the seed, and you basically wipe it onto the underside of a branch and that's mimicking what a mistletoe bird would do naturally.
"Then you sit and wait patiently and hope you get a new mistletoe plant growing from that."
Project proving successful
About 2,000 mistletoe seeds had been planted since the summer of 2020-21 and early monitoring was showing signs of success.
Mr Roderick said in the wild about 10 per cent of mistletoe seeds deposited by birds and animals grew into a healthy mistletoe clump, and the project was achieving a similar success rate.
"It hasn't been done before, so we have been learning as we are going," he said.
"We've learnt there's a certain width of branch, which is best to plant the mistletoe on.
"You also need to check the tree to make sure the bark isn't shedding, otherwise the mistletoe can't attach.
"I like to say that mistletoe supercharges a woodland. Wherever you get mistletoe you are going to get way more diversity of birds and other fauna."
Summer planting to occur
A large number of seeds would again be planted in the Tomalpin Woodlands this summer.
"The mistletoe will be fruiting around Christmas time and into January and that's when we will be getting out with our arborists," Mr Roderick said.
"We are aiming to have about 2,000 seeds planted up into the canopy this season."
The idea has attracted interest from other areas, including the Manning region where the MidCoast Council has sought information.
"It's been great to see the expanding interest throughout NSW, because there are species of mistletoe that regent honeyeaters and a lot of other woodland birds rely on all along the coast," Ms Peters said.
Birds released into area
The restoration work is being undertaken in conjunction with a regent honeyeater captive-breeding program, with 50 regent honeyeaters recently released into the Tomalpin Woodlands.
"Those birds are helping boost the wild population," Ms Peters said.
"So we are really hopeful, if we continue doing the habitat restoration, in hand with these captive releases, that we can eventually reverse the steep decline in regent honeyeaters we have unfortunately seen over the past 20 years."
