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Cape White-eye (Zosterops capensis)



Other names:
Afrikaans: Kaapse Glasogie
German: Oranjebrillenvogel
French: Zostérops du Cap
Portuguese: Olho-branco do Cabo
Dutch: Kaapse brilvogel


A small very active yellowish bird with a white ring around the eye. Size 12cm - smaller than a sparrow. Afrikaans: Kaapse Glasogie

The bill of the White-eye is straight, short and slender. The bill is blackish with a blue-grey base to the lower mandible. The legs and feet are bluish-grey. The eye is brown and there is a solid, fairly prominent, white ring around the eye. The upperparts are greyish-green. The throat and undertail are yellow. The rest of the underparts vary in colour depending on region, from greenish yellow with green wash on the breast, to whitish with rufous-pink flanks.

A common and familiar bird which is present in a variety of habitats including gardens, parks, forest, woodland, riverine bush and exotic plantations.

It is usually seen in pairs or in small quick moving parties, which move through the foliage, calling all the time. They search trees and shrubs thoroughly, often from ground level to the canopy, searching for small insects.

The diet consists of small insects, spiders, nectar, fruit, and flower petals. They are quite regular visitors to bird tables, where they will take fruit, sugar or jam.

They are very vocal, and constantly keep in touch with soft trilled pee, pree or pirreee callnotes. The song consists of repeated long jerky prhases of sweet reedy notes, varying in pitch, volume and temp, usually starting off with teee teee or pirrup pirrup notes, then becoming a fast rambled jumble of notes, which may incorporate mimicked phrases of other birdcalls.

Cape White-eyes nest mainly from October to December. The nest is a small thin-walled cup of fine grass, stems, roots, hair and strands of lichen, bound together with spider webs and lined with plant down of feathers. It is suspended by rim from thin horizontal fork of shrub, bush or tree.

I've got a breading pair in my garden and only get a glimpse of them when they are bathing in our, I mean there bird bath in our garden. They also sometimes eat some of the apples that we place all over the garden everyday. They always make me smile and they are just simply adorable.

hi all

today i was getting dressed and i saw these cute little birds, they are very common in our garden and there soft plaintive calls are wonderfull to listen to. i was wondering if anyone has seen them in kruger?[/b][/list]

Heres a Pic of one of the little guys, ever present in the Garden

Many moons ago I saw this VERY strange bird at the Skukuza nursery. At that time I was still a novice birder, so it really threw me. Unfortunately only had a video camera, so could only do low-res screendumps. But after assistance from Geoff Lockwood realised it was in fact a Cape White-eye with a faceful of pollen!!!









Sometimes they just know how to confuse you!!!

Seen this quite often, when Aloes are flowering.......Bulbuls, Sunbirds, White Eyes, weaver and Orioles all taking on orange/yellow heads Rather strange looking!!

Ever seen a chick before?



This little one was chased from the nest by a Karoo Thrush in my parents' garden. It misjudged it's flightpath and flew into a trellis, knocking itself out cold! Duco saved it just as the Thrush was starting to peck at the unconscious bird. It recovered after a few minutes and was placed in a tree nearby where the parents fed it.