Silvereye

The Silvereye is a small, active songbird easily recognised by the bold ring of white feathers encircling each eye, set against olive-green upperparts, a grey back (in some populations), and underparts that range from whitish to buff or cinnamon depending on subspecies and region. This distinctive eye-ring, from which the bird takes its name, is visible even at a distance and makes the species one of the easier small birds to identify.

Highly social outside the breeding season, Silvereyes typically move in loose, twittering flocks through foliage, gardens, and orchards, and are well known to gardeners for their fondness for ripening soft fruit, as well as for visiting nectar-rich flowers and sugar-water feeders.

The species is a strong disperser and has colonised New Zealand from Australia within historical times, arriving in such numbers in the nineteenth century that it earned the Māori name 'tauhou', meaning 'stranger', reflecting its relatively recent and well-documented establishment there.

Key field marks

• Small size with a bold white ring around each eye
• Olive-green upperparts
• Underparts varying from whitish to buff or cinnamon depending on subspecies
• Short, fine, slightly downcurved bill
• Active, social behaviour, often in loose flocks

Similar species

No other common Australian garden bird has the Silvereye's combination of small size, olive-green upperparts, and bold white eye-ring, making it one of the more straightforward small birds to identify. Thornbills and gerygones lack the distinctive white eye-ring and have different, thinner bills.

Habitat

Silvereyes are highly adaptable, occurring in forests, woodlands, coastal scrub, heathland, gardens, and orchards, wherever suitable foliage and food are available.

Range

The species is widespread across southern, eastern, and southwestern Australia and Tasmania, and has self-established in New Zealand, where it is now common and widespread.

Migration

Many southeastern Australian and Tasmanian populations are strongly migratory, moving north in autumn in loose flocks and returning south in spring, while other populations, particularly in warmer regions, are more sedentary.

Behavior

Outside the breeding season, Silvereyes are highly gregarious, forming loose, active flocks that move constantly through foliage, gardens, and orchards, often giving soft contact calls as they forage together.

Voice

Calls include a soft, plaintive 'tsee' contact note, while the song is a subdued, warbling chatter, often given quietly from cover.

Feeding

It has a varied diet including insects and other invertebrates, soft fruit, berries, and nectar, and readily visits gardens with fruiting trees or nectar-rich flowers.

Nesting and breeding

The nest is a small, neat, cup-shaped structure of grass, hair, and spider web, slung in a fork of a shrub or tree; both parents share incubation and feeding of the young, and pairs may raise multiple broods in a season.