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Orange River White-Eye | Zosterops pallidus
Oranjerivierbrilvogel | Anteojitos del Orange
The Orange River White-Eye is the pale white-eye of the dry west of the region, especially Namibia and the Northern Cape. It follows the tree lines along rivers and dry watercourses deep into the Karoo and the Kalahari and is a common garden bird in many towns and villages of the west.
Voice
The contact call is a soft, plaintive tsiu or tee-uu, repeated by members of a party. The song is a fast, sweet, twittering series of high whistles, similar to that of Cape White-Eye.
Recording: Tony Archer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm. The upperparts are pale sandy olive-green, paler than in Cape White-Eye. The throat and undertail coverts are yellow, the belly is off-white and the flanks have a clear warm apricot or buff wash. Around the eye is a broad white ring, broken in front of the eye by a narrow dark line. The bill is thin and dark, the legs grey. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller, with a narrower eye-ring and weaker flank colour. It lives in small, active parties that call constantly.
Confusion species
Cape White-Eye Zosterops virens is darker green above and has grey or greenish-yellow flanks without a buff wash; in a narrow contact zone, including the western Free State, North West and the Karoo, intermediates occur and not every bird can be named. Southern Yellow White-Eye Zosterops anderssoni of northern Namibia and Botswana is smaller and wholly yellow from throat to undertail. Cape Penduline Tit Anthoscopus minutus is smaller, has a black forehead and no white eye-ring.
Habitat
Tree lines and thickets along rivers and dry watercourses in the Nama Karoo, the Kalahari and the savanna of the west, and scrubby slopes; also gardens, parks, orchards and vineyards, especially along the Orange River. It forages in trees and bushes for small insects, nectar and fruit.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In Namibia in the centre and south, north to the Etosha area; in South Africa in the Northern Cape, the western Free State and North West, and the inland Karoo of the Western and Eastern Cape; also in south-western Botswana and marginally in Lesotho. It does not occur outside the region.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
All year; usually found in gardens and along the river in towns such as Upington, Kakamas and Windhoek, and in the tree line along the dry riverbeds in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Look for the apricot flanks to separate it from Cape White-Eye.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in its range and increased through tree planting, gardens and irrigated farming along rivers.
Scientific name
Zosterops pallidus | Swainson, 1838
Swainson described the species in 1838 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Zosterops was introduced in 1827 by Vigors & Horsfield. Zosterops comes from the Greek zōstēr, 'belt, girdle', and ōps, 'eye' — for the white eye-ring shown by most white-eyes. pallidus is Latin for 'pale' — for the light, greyish flanks and underparts of this arid-country white-eye. The specimen the first description was based on came from c. 16 km east of Prieska, Northern Cape, South Africa.