Silvereye
Zosterops lateralis
Other Names: Silvereye (Grey Backed)
Family: Zosteropidae (White-eyes, 3 species in Australia)
Size: 12 cm
Distribution: Around the coasts of Australia, mainly in the Southeast, up to several hundred km inland in the Southeast.
Status: Common
Habitat: All types, orchards, gardens, everywhere really
References: Simpson and Day, Reader's Digest
Silvereyes are usually seen in numbers of at least 10 birds and sometimes a lot more. Like most small birds they do not stay in the one place very long. They are lovely birds and I always feel happy when I see them.
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Photo: Blaxland, Blue Mountains NSW
The photo below shows two Silvereyes playing in the birdbath with a male Superb Fairy Wren.
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Photo: Blaxland, Blue Mountains NSW
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Artwork: John Gould, 'The Birds of Australia', 1848. Original Scanned Image.
Some Birdwatching Resources
NEW: Know Your Birds, by Louise Egerton. Revised edition 3 July 2019. Paperback / softback, 176 pages. It has an orange cover. The original edition was 2005 and has a blue cover. Some of the book sellers listed here show the photo from the original/older blue cover edition, but the rest of the info (including the publication date and ISBN) are from the newer revised 2019 edition, so presumably that's the one you'll get.
This book has very high quality large photographs of the birds (as in actual photographs). Most of the photos take up a whole page for each bird photograph. "Know Your Birds" only has a selection of the most common birds, and not all the birds that are found in Australia. This makes it very good for beginners — since most of the field guides have all the birds — and it can be confusing looking at six almost identical species of birds, not knowing that five of them are rare and it's probably the common one that you're looking for. Which would be the only one listed in this book.
Purchase from Australia (The Nile)
Purchase from Australia (Fishpond)
Purchase from Amazon.com.au (Australian Site)
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