The Western Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis chloronotus) is a small greenish bird in the Zosteropidae or White-eye family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

. It is a subspecies of the Silvereye

Silvereye

The Silvereye or Wax-eye is a very small passerine bird native to Australia, New Zealand and the south-west Pacific islands of Lord Howe, New Caledonia, Loyalty Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji...

 that occurs in Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 and South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

. It is sometimes called the White-eye or Greenie. Aboriginal names for the bird include Jule-we-de-lung or Julwidilang from the Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

 area and Poang from the Pallinup River

Pallinup River

Pallinup River is river located in the Great Southern region of Western Australia.The Pallinup rises near Kokodarrup River and flows in a south easterly direction toward the coast passing through Kybelup Pool and discharging into the Southern Ocean via Beaufort Inlet.The river is one of the longest...

.

Distribution and habitat

The Western Silvereye is found in Southwest Australia

Southwest Australia

Southwest Australia is a biodiversity hotspot that includes the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions of Western Australia. The region has a wet-winter, dry-summer Mediterranean climate, one of five such regions in the world...

 with its range extending northwards to the vicinity of Shark Bay

Shark Bay

Shark Bay is a World Heritage listed bay in Western Australia. The term may also refer to:* the locality of Shark Bay, now known as Denham* Shark Bay Marine Park* Shark Bay , a shark exhibit at Sea World, Gold Coast, Australia* Shire of Shark Bay...

 and Carnarvon

Carnarvon, Western Australia

Carnarvon is a coastal town situated approximately 900 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia. It lies at the mouth of the Gascoyne River on the Indian Ocean. The popular Shark Bay world heritage area lies to the south of the town and the Ningaloo Reef lies to the north...

, and rarely in winter as far as Point Cloates

Point Cloates

Point Cloates, Western Australia, is situated off North West Cape of Western Australia..Cloates island remained on marine charts and world maps until late in the 18th Century. The Guthrie world map published in 1785 maps out the voyages of Captain James Cook and shows "Cloats" Island in 97 degrees...

 and the De Grey River

De Grey River

The De Grey River is a river located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.The river rises South of Callawa at the confluence of the Oakover and the Nullagine rivers and flows in a west north westerly direction eventually discharging into the Indian Ocean via Breaker Inlet about 80 km North...

. In the south its range extends eastwards along the south coast of Western Australia into South Australia at the head of the Great Australian Bight

Great Australian Bight

The Great Australian Bight is a large bight, or open bay, off the central and western portions of the southern coastline of mainland Australia.-Extent:...

. It also occurs on many offshore islands, including the Houtman Abrolhos

Houtman Abrolhos

The Houtman Abrolhos is a chain of 122 islands, and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. Nominally located at , it lies about eighty kilometres west of Geraldton, Western Australia...

 and the Archipelago of the Recherche

Archipelago of the Recherche

Archipelago of the Recherche is a group of 105 islands, and over 1200 "obstacles to shipping", off the southern coast of Western Australia. The islands, also known as the Recherche Archipelago, stretch from East to West and to off-shore....

. Habitats used by the bird include both wet and dry sclerophyll

Sclerophyll

Sclerophyll is the term for a type of vegetation that has hard leaves and short internodes . The word comes from the Greek sclero and phyllon ....

 forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

, temperate eucalypt

Eucalypt

Eucalypts are woody plants belonging to three closely related genera:Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora.In 1995 new evidence, largely genetic, indicated that some prominent Eucalyptus species were actually more closely related to Angophora than to the other eucalypts; they were split off into the...

 woodland

Woodland

Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...

, mallee woodland and shrubland

Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands

Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands is a Major Vegetation Group which occurs in semi-arid areas of southern Australia. The vegetation is dominated by mallee eucalypts which are rarely over 6 metres high...

, and mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

s, as well as areas of and around human habitation.

Description

The upperparts are entirely bright olive-green, with the wings and tail feathers grey, edged with green. The throat and undertail coverts are yellow-green, with the rest of the underparts grey. Circlets of small white feathers surround the eyes. Males are brighter yellow on the throat than females. The birds are 10–13 cm in length and weigh about 10 g. They give a variety of high-pitched calls, with the distinctive and constantly uttered contact call a thin ‘psee’.

Taxonomy and nomenclature

The Western Silvereye is the only green-backed form of the Silvereye found in Australia, the other subspecies there having grey backs. According to Serventy and Whittell

Hubert Whittell

Hubert Massey Whittell OBE was a British army officer, and later an Australian farmer and ornithologist who compiled a history and bibliography of ornithology in Australia from its origins until the mid 20th century....

, who treat it as a full species, the bird also lacks the pre-nuptial moult which characterise the eastern Australian populations of the species.

Because of such differences, the Western Silvereye has often been considered a full species. However, Schodde

Richard Schodde

Richard Schodde, OAM is an Australian botanist and ornithologist.Schodde studied at the University of Adelaide where he received a BSc in 1960 and a PhD in 1970. During the 1960s he was a botanist with the CSIRO Division of Land Research and Regional Survey in Papua New Guinea...

 and Mason

Ian J. Mason

Ian J. Mason is an Australian ornithologist and taxonomist who is Senior Collection Manager for the Australian National Wildlife Collection. He is an authority on oology.-Publications:...

 retain it in lateralis because, with a similar niche and voice, it replaces the eastern forms of the species in south-west Australia; because it is connected by a zone of intergradation with Z. l. pinarochrous in South Australia; and because mtDNA

Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...

 data links chloronotus with pinarochrous eastwards to western Victoria where the latter intergrades with Z. l. westernensis, showing that the various forms meeting in south-eastern Australia are linked by broad zones of morphological

Morphology (biology)

In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....

 intergradation

Intergradation

In zoology, intergradation is the way in which two distinct subspecies are connected via areas where populations are found that have the characteristics of both...

.

The specific (or subspecific) name gouldi Bonaparte, 1850, was previously applied to the bird on the mistaken presumption that chloronotus Gould, 1841 was a junior secondary homonym of Dicaeum chloronothos Viellot, 1817 in Zosterops. Thus chloronotus is the senior synonym

Synonym (taxonomy)

In scientific nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that is or was used for a taxon of organisms that also goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies...

 and has priority.

Behaviour

Of the general behaviour of the Western Silvereye, Serventy and Whittell say:

”This is perhaps the commonest small bird in the Perth area and over much of the South-West. After the nesting season, by January, the birds gather into foraging flocks, which are noisily on the move until the pairs separate out again next spring. In the city and suburbs they play the role of the Sparrow (Passer domesticus) in the eastern States, or the tits (Parus) in Europe, visiting gardens, shrubberies and even the backyard fowl-run.”

Breeding

The Western Silvereye usually builds a suspended cup-shaped nest

Nest

A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building...

 of grass

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

es in a shrub or tree. The grasses are bound with spider web

Spider web

A spider web, spiderweb, spider's web or cobweb is a device built by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets....

 and the inner cup lined with finer grasses, wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

 or horsehair

Horsehair

Horsehair is the long, coarse hair growing on the manes and tails of horses. It is used for various purposes, including upholstery, brushes, the bows of musical instruments, a hard-wearing fabric called haircloth, and for horsehair plaster, a wallcovering material formerly used in the construction...

. The cup is about 5 cm across and 2–3 cm deep. Clutch

Clutch (eggs)

A clutch of eggs refers to all the eggs produced by birds or reptiles, often at a single time, particularly those laid in a nest.In birds, destruction of a clutch by predators, , results in double-clutching...

 size is two or three, sometimes four, pale blue eggs. Both parents incubate

Avian incubation

Incubation refers to the process by which certain oviparous animals hatch their eggs, and to the development of the embryo within the egg. The most vital factor of incubation is the constant temperature required for its development over a specific period. Especially in domestic fowl, the act of...

 the eggs for a period of 10–13 days, with the young birds leaving the nest about 12 days after hatching. Breeding takes place mainly in the wetter, coastal part of the range from September to January, with the birds forming large flocks and moving further afield once breeding has ceased. When breeding conditions are good, pairs can produce and raise up to four broods in a season.

Feeding

Western Silvereyes are omnivorous

Omnivore

Omnivores are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source...

; they eat small insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s as well as a wide variety of fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

s and nectar. They form mixed-species foraging flocks with several other birds, especially Weebill

Weebill

The Weebill is Australia's smallest bird at approximately 9 cm long. It is an olive-yellow songbird with a grey bill, brown wings, pale yellow eyes and grey feet. Its tail feathers are brown with a black bar and white spot on the tip of all inner webs but the central pairs. The sexes are...

s, Western Gerygone

Western Gerygone

The Western Gerygone is a species of bird in the Acanthizidae family.It is endemic to Australia.Its natural habitats are temperate forests and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.-References:...

s, Western

Western Thornbill

The Western Thornbill is a species of bird in the Pardalotidae family.It is endemic to Australia.Its natural habitat is Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation....

, Inland

Inland Thornbill

The Inland Thornbill , commonly called the Broad-tailed Thornbill, is a small, insect-eating bird of Australia. The Inland Thornbill is commonly confused with the coastal Brown Thornbill due to its similar colorations. The Inland Thornbill encompasses four subspecies :* A. a. apicalis* A. a....

 and Yellow-rumped Thornbill

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

The Yellow-rumped Thornbill is a species of passerine bird from the genus Acanthiza. The genus was once placed in the family Pardalotidae but that family was split and it is now in the family Acanthizidae. There are four subspecies of Yellow-rumped Thornbill. It is a small, brownish bird with a...

s, Grey Fantail

Grey Fantail

The Grey Fantail is a small insectivorous bird. A common fantail found in Australia , New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia...

s and Golden Whistler

Golden Whistler

The Australian Golden Whistler is a species of bird found in forest, woodland, mallee, mangrove and scrub in Australia and in mountain forest in the Snow Mountains in the Papua Province of Indonesia. Most populations are resident, but some in south-eastern Australia migrate north during the winter...

s. In summer when their natural food supplies are scarce, they flock to vineyard

Vineyard

A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...

s and orchard

Orchard

An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive...

s and damage grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

s and other soft fruits. When Marri

Corymbia calophylla

Corymbia calophylla is a bloodwood native to Western Australia. Common names include Marri and Port Gregory Gum, and a long standing usage has been Red Gum due to the red gum effusions often found on trunks.It is distinctive among bloodwoods for its very large buds and fruit Corymbia calophylla...

 trees are flowering and producing large amounts of nectar in summer, damage to fruit is usually minimal.

Relationship with humans

In Western Australia, the Western Silvereye is a declared pest of agriculture under the provisions of the Agriculture and Related Resources Protection Act 1976, administered by the Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food.