THE WHITE-EYE

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 22, 6 November 1944, Page 20

THE WHITE-EYE

By “Caffe” with wood engravings by

The white-eye of New Zealand is one of a large number of essentially similar birds which have their homes scattered across a vast belt of temperate and tropical lands from Africa, through India and South East Asia, the East Indies and Australia, to New Zealand and some of the Pacific Islands. Of the sixty-seven kinds of White-eye, the one so well known in New Zealand has the widest distribution and has apparently spread within the last hundred years. Unknown in New Zealand before 1856, the White-eye rapidly multiplied after its first appearance at that date, and is now probably the most abundant of all New Zealand land birds, equally at home in virgin bush and in city gardens, where its habit of feeding on scraps of food has made it almost as familiar as the common sparrow. The White-eye has recently been the subject of intensive study by New Zealand bird-watchers, who have trapped and marked hundreds of birds with distinctive leg-bands, and thus gained much exact knowledge of its habits, life-history, and movements. This account draws largely upon the results of this investigation, published in the journal

New Zealand Bird Notes. Throughout the winter months in most parts of New Zealand White-eyes are found in flocks of thirty to a hundred birds, which roam fairly widely over the country, feeding together in tree-tops, shrub, and rose-bush on aphids and other insects, and, at times, on scraps and on ripe fruit. From the evidence of marked birds we learn that the same individuals may feed in a garden for days on end and then move away, perhaps returning again after a few days or weeks. Many, on the other hand, are never , seen again after their first visit. Birds which frequented, a garden with some regularity returned to it when captured and released at a distance of 12 miles, a remarkable “ homing ” achievement in birds which had no nests nor young as an inducement to return. There are many records of voluntary wandering of up to 10 miles from the place of original marking, but little evidence that there is any regular “ migration/’ though one remarkable Dunedin bird was found in Canterbury, 150 miles away, twenty-one months later. The winter flocks break up in September, but before that month there are signs that pairing has begun, and that

nesting territories are being selected. These are long processes, involving quite a little flirtation with several different birds before the final mate is chosen. Nevertheless, it often happens that the final choice is the mate of the last season, and nests are sometimes placed within a few feet of the previous year’s site. While the female bird builds the fragile, cupshaped nest, the male sings loudly his monotonous, though cheerful, song from a neighbouring vantage point. Both birds assist

in the incubation of the two or three sky-blue eggs, from which, in ten days, almost naked nestlings emerge. After the eggs hatch, the male no longer has time to sing, for he has to join his mate in searching for food for the ravenous young, which consume over two hundred beakfuls of insects a day during the nine days they spend in the nest. During the stages of nest-building, incubation, and feeding of the young, White-eyes defend the area around the nest or “ territory ” by attacking others of their kind, and when the young leave the nest, and the family party wanders farther afield, the birds are frequently attacked by aggressive parents at other nests. There are many casualties to eggs, nests, and young at early stages, and only about half the eggs laid eventually become fully fledged birds. Still fewer of such young birds survive a year ; perhaps io per cent., but the White-eye is to be considered a very energetic breeder, producing perhaps three, and certainly two, broods a year during the months from October to March. So successful has the White-eye been, that in the ninety years since it first appeared in New Zealand it has risen to the position of the commonest New Zealand land bird. In some favoured gardens there are more

than three pairs per acre in the breeding season, and in winter several hundred birds may be present. In late summer the hardworked parent birds moult their feathers and gain fresh plumage for the winter. With the moult, the flocks form up again, territory, nest, and mate are forgotten, and dozens of birds feed together, substituting a close-knit social existence for their individualistic lives during the breeding season, and wandering far afield. Yet some subconscious urge, lying dormant all winter,

draws ' them back, in many cases to the same nest, tree, and same mate, when spring comes again. It is apparently in winter that occasional flocks, wandering over the countryside in search of food, have' been carried out to sea in high winds and gone on flying till they “ discovered ” and colonized new islands. Perhaps the birds fly to sea of their own volition, but, however it happens, many must be lost at sea for every flock that finds land. Following upon the “ conquest of New Zealand ” by the White-eye in 1856, the bird has successfully colonized most of the outlying islands—-the Chathams, some 400 miles away to the east, the Auckland Islands, 190 miles to the south, and Campbell Island, over 300 miles to the south east. At both Macquarie Island, 570 miles south, and the Kermadecs, 590 miles north of New Zealand, White-eyes have been reported, but apparently have not become permanently established. The history of New Zealand birds during the past century has bfeen a dismal story of extinctions, increasing rarity, and . of diminishing numbers of native species in which the success of the diminutive White-eye stands out in pleasing contrast.