The Every-bird

Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Silvereye, Stacey Wood

Silver-eyes are fairytale critters – their biography reads like something out of Beatrix Potter.

Silvereye, photo: Craig McKenzie

Their nests are tiny cups of grass, moss, hair, spiderweb and thistledown suspended from a small tree or shrub. Their eggs are small, fragile and pale blue.

They measure just 12 centimetres long and weigh a mere 12 grams. They even come equipped with a wee brush- tipped tongue for drinking nectar. Delightful.

One hundred per cent sweet and lovely (except for a pesky habit of pecking at farmers’ orchards), they forage and flit in bushes all over the country. A minute or two spent watching these little green munchkins darting around the garden can brighten the greyest afternoon.

Please don’t hold it against the silver-eye that he may actually be an Australian. Just because he can’t prove that he’s been here all along – and didn’t hop over on a ship from Aussie in the early 1800s – doesn’t make him any less deserving of your vote. His Maori name is “tauhou”, meaning “little stranger” but he’s no stranger to anyone in New Zealand.

In fact he’s so ubiquitous you’ve probably not paid much attention to him lately, so why not cast your vote for the every-bird, the one who’s always there, just fossicking away in the underbrush