Yellow-fronted White-eye
Zosterops flavifrons
Small. Greenish-yellow above and brighter yellow below, with a broad, bold white eye-ring. Mostly inhabits forested areas, but common in open scrub and gardens. Silvereye is similar but has a dark gray back and peachy-buff underparts. Yellow-fronted’s common call is a high-pitched “tzeep-tzeep,” repeated frequently.
Identification
The Vanuatu white-eye is 11–12 cm (4.3–4.7 in) in overall length. The adult male is yellow-green above while the underparts are bright yellow or yellow-green depending on the subspecies. The forehead is yellow and there is a white ring around the eye. The legs and feet are dark grey and the bill is brown above and pinkish below. Female and immature birds are similar to the male but paler. The immatures also have a narrower eye-ring.<p>The contact call is short and high-pitched. The song is a repeated warbling.
Taxonomy
The Vanuatu white-eye was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the flycatchers in the genus Muscicapa and coined the binomial name Muscicapa flavifrons. The specific epithet combines the Latin flavus meaning "yellow" with frons meaning "forehead" or "front". Gmelin based his account on the "Yellow-fronted flycatcher" from the island of Tanna in the Vanuatu archipelago that had been described in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. The naturalist Joseph Banks had provided Latham with a water-colour drawing of the bird by the naturalist Georg Forster who had accompanied James Cook on his second voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The picture is dated 7 August 1774. It is the holotype for the species and is now in the collection of the Natural History Museum in London. The Vanuatu white-eye is now placed with over a hundred other white-eye species in the genus Zosterops that was introduced in 1827 by Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield.<p>Seven subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Zosterops flavifrons
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1789)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Zosteropidae
- Genus
- Zosterops
Range and habitat
The seven subspecies are distributed almost throughout Vanuatu from the Banks Islands in the north to Aneityum in the south. The species occurs in a variety of habitats including forest, plantations and gardens from sea level to the mountains.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Migration pattern: Resident species.
Conservation
- Population trend
- unknown
Photos
Distribution
Other Birds
Southern Marquesan Reed Warbler
Acrocephalus mendanae
A medium-sized reed warbler, bright yellow below and tawny above, with pale-edged black wing feathers. Bill long and slightly downcurved, giving the bird a very “long-headed” appearance. Found in scrubby areas and plantations, avoiding deep primary forest. Call is a harsh “tchak.” Song is a mix of whistles, churring, warbling, and rasping scold notes.
Stripe-breasted Wren
Cantorchilus thoracicus
Medium-sized wren, brown above with bold black-and-white streaking on face and breast. Distinctive in range. Fond of viney tangles at middle heights, but can be difficult to see through vegetation. Variable song always includes sweet repeated whistles, sometimes very simple but can be more complex, similar to other wrens.
Gray-naped Antpitta
Grallaria griseonucha
Plump, medium-sized bird with long legs, short bill, and very short tail: the typical antpitta shape. Mostly rufous overall with gray nape and lores. Sexes similar. Solitary and very shy and difficult to see, little known about its habits. Mostly near streams, on or close to ground in forest edges, tree falls, elfin forest, and mossy cloud forest. Easy to find by voice, a series of low whistled notes “wü, wü-wü-wü…wüwü.” Endemic to the Andes of Venezuela.
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