Bunya Mountains NP: So many silvereyes
Silvereyes (Zosterops lateralis) are tiny birds, a little more than 10cm in length and are easy to recognize by the white ring around their eyes.
They are constantly moving, so although they are relatively common at the places that we visit it has been difficult to take good photos of them. But at Bunya Mountains NP there were thousands of them. They were much more common than we had ever seen them anywhere else before. But they were still difficult to photograph!
In the early morning of our first full day of camping at the Westcott campsite I went for a stroll along the path in the sunny west-facing, clearing near the camping ground and encountered a large migratory flock that had paused to feed. The trees surrounding the clearing were restless with birds and some flew into the scattered shrubs in the grassy area to look for berries and insects.
The next day they were gone, but silvereyes were very common on all of our walks through woodland areas in the national park, and around the campsite.
Silvereyes are reknowned for their migrations, with birds from Tasmania moving as far north as QLD for the winter months. But their migratory patterns are complex, with birds on the mainland also migrating during winter, while other individuals remain in the local area throughout the year.
The silvereyes that we saw were clearly not the Tasmanian variety, which has distinctly pinky buff-coloured flanks.
I may not have taken good close-up portraits of silvereyes on this trip, but I did obtain plenty of photographic evidence of their omnivorous feeding habits!
