MEJIRO
Japanese White-eye
Zosterops japonicus
The official city bird of Nagaokakyo and Kyoto, the Japanese White-eye is native to much of eastern Asia. It has spread to areas of India, mainly through the pet bird trade, and was introduced to Hawaii as a method of controlling insects.
This bird lives in wooded areas, both rural and urban, and lives most of its life in trees. Agitated and excitable, the white-eye is constantly in motion. They congregate in noisy flocks of up to twenty birds and demonstrate teamwork by joining with other small birds when threatened by larger ones. Their bell-like song carries quite a distance.
Hear the Japanese White-eye sing (quicktime required)
The Mejiro hunt during the day and mainly eat insects, beetle and fly larvae and spiders that they find in the leaves and bark of trees. They also eat small berries, papayas, avocados and the Chinese banyan, and they especially like ripe persimmons. They are quite athletic when hunting their prey, often hanging upside down to get at a particularly choice insect. The dietary habits of the white-eye make it not only effective at insect control but very helpful in cross-pollination.
The breeding season lasts from February to December, with the most activity between July and August. The Mejiro are very territorial when breeding and seldom nest with other species of birds. They build their neat woven nests at any height in all sorts of trees using whatever they can find: grass, plant material, string, tin foil, leaves, mosses, cobwebs, spider cocoons, and even human hair when they live near people. They attach their nests to the tree branch with spider webs.
The Mejiro lays up to five pale blue eggs, which only take about eleven days to hatch. These birds form monogamous pairs and both the male and female act as parents to their chicks. The chicks are nearly bald when born and are not able to fly for one to six days after they leave the nest. The young will stay with their parents for about twenty days, at which time they are chased away so that the adults can begin a new nesting cycle. The juveniles form flocks until they are about a year old, when they pair off and begin the cycle again.
The White-eyes make good pets as they are easily tamed. Their owners even enter them in singing contests. In captivity these birds will groom each other and sleep close together, though in the wild they sleep alone and the rare bath is solitary. The Mejiro has long been a favorite of Japanese artists.
Take home a Japanese White-Eye!
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sources:
wiki-Japanese White Eye
Zosterops japonicus
Honolulu Zoo
White-eye photo by: Maga-chan, Creative Commons license
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