Yellow-plumed Honeyeaters are traditionally regarded as birds of the mallee - found mainly in mallee scrubs right across southern Australia but in the SW of W.A. they do also occur in some taller eucalypt woodlands of the inland. Fairly sedentary, they occupy permanent territories as pairs but in optimum habitat they are known to form small loose colonies where, when threatened they gather in groups to repel predators, or perhaps interlopers.

Males advertise territories with short, vertical song-flights like many other honeyeaters. Yellow-plumed Honeyeaters are sometimes confused with Grey-fronted Honeyeaters because they both occur in mallee. The shape of the neck-plume is different.