Talk:Silvereye

Common name

I have added a couple of extra common names (White-eye, Wax-eye). I know these are widely used in NZ, but if they have no use in Australia they may need demoting from the opening para. I don't want to march in and change it, but crossing the Bass Strait doesn't look too amazing in context of the migrations from Africa to Europe that are common in Old World northern hemisphere species - and probably New World too, but I don't know their patterns as well. This might want toning down a bit? seglea 21:17, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC) Bass Straight is a hell of a lot wider than the Straights of Gibralter, Seglea. It is by no means the most astonishing of non-stop crossings, but for a tiny land bird 200 to 400 kilometres of ocean at one hit is still pretty damn impressive. On the common names, Silvereye is the official name in both Australia and NZ, so I'll change them around a bit. (I forgot NZ earlier.)

oh, ok, I didn't realise you meant sea crossings, that's probably fair enough - I was thinking about total distance flown. Of course quite a lot cross the Eastern Mediterranean, which is a good bit further than the gibraltar strait, and some fairly small species go over to Iceland, and I think also from northern UK straight to Scandinavia. But I'm not a great expert on migration routes, and everything I know suggests that they do minimise sea crossing if they can - I do know there's a flyway down from Scandinavia via Holland and Belgium then across to England, then down the west side of France, eastern Spain and on into Africa that way; and another all the way down Italy (where a lot get shot by Italians). seglea 00:33, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Uhhh. why would Italians shoot lots of silvereyes? Old_Wombat (talk) 12:44, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

As the white-eye family range doesn't extend much if at all into Europe I'm assuming he was referring to the general slaughter of songbirds (warblers, thrushes, etc.) during their yearly migration by poachers around the Mediterranean to be sold and eaten as a delicacy. 174.49.19.28 (talk) 02:54, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Expert req.

I might deal with it later, but the subspecies section needs an overhalt. Two of the four taxa listed are now considered invalid, two distributions are inaccurate/incorrect, some of the common names listed refer to groups (not single ssp.) matching the previously accepted split into three species from Australia (+ Lord Howe), and the name Grey-breasted White-eye is used either for the entire species or only the lateralis group (not for "gouldi", which now is the chloronotus). • Rabo³ • 04:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

List of subspecies updated with info from HBW. Maias (talk) 07:48, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The Silvereye looks and sounds just like the Cape White Eye (Kraalogie), Zosterops Pallidus, which is common in South Africa. Check the wikipedia entry for Cape White Eye. (These little bird gave me much joy in Cape Town, and now they do in Hobart.) 58.109.12.40 (talk) 04:23, 14 February 2011 (UTC)