Swinhoe's White-Eye
Zosterops simplex
About This Species
Watch for small, restless flocks working through shrubs, hedgerows and garden canopy across southern China, Taiwan and parts of Southeast Asia, gleaning insects and sipping nectar. It adapts well to parks and urban greenery, so city gardens and orchards can be as productive as forest edge. Activity peaks in the cooler hours of morning and late afternoon, when flocks move together and keep up a constant thin, wheezy chatter.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- Stay several metres back and let flocks move naturally rather than pushing into dense cover to follow them.
- Protection and enforcement vary considerably across the range, from strict controls in some countries to little regulation in others, so check local rules rather than assuming uniform protection.
- Avoid disturbing birds at nest sites, and never take birds from the wild — wild-caught individuals are still trapped for the cage-bird trade in parts of the region.
LCAvesPasseriformesZosteropidae
Seasonal Activity
559,247 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
All monthsThis month
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Zosteropidae
Photo
(c) Bronze Cheung Kwok Yee, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Bronze Cheung Kwok Yee
CC-BY-NC-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.