Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis)
About the Silvereye
The silvereye or wax-eye (Zosterops lateralis), also known by its Māori name tauhou, is a very small omnivorous passerine bird of the south-west Pacific. In Australia and New Zealand its common name is sometimes white-eye, but this name is more commonly used to refer to all members of the genus Zosterops, or the entire family Zosteropidae. In New Zealand, the silvereye was first recorded in 1832. It arrived in greater numbers in 1856, and it is assumed that a migrating flock was swept eastwards by a storm. As an apparently self-introduced bird it is protected as a native New Zealand species. Its Māori name, tauhou, means "stranger" or more literally, "new arrival". The silvereye was first described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801 under the binomial name Sylvia lateralis.
A real field recording of the Silvereye. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
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Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
1 recording on this page · licensed Public Domain / CC0 ×1 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Vanuatu · xeno-canto lists 155 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- "Wangi-wangi White-eye"Zosterops tax.nov.Wangi.wangiprofile
- Abyssinian White-eyeZosterops abyssinicusprofile
- Ambon White-eyeZosterops kuehniprofile
- Ashy-bellied White-eyeZosterops citrinellaprofile
- Bare-eyed White-eyeZosterops superciliosusprofile
- Biak White-eyeZosterops mysorensisprofile
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.