Swinhoe's White-eye

Zosterops simplex · Songbirds

Swinhoe's White-eye, in the shade

San Diego Botanic Garden, 7 March 2026

A Swinhoe's White-eye in a stand of bamboo and out of the sun in a San Diego garden in March, moving through the foliage with a small restless party of others - not the kinglet it was first written up as. An Asian bird of gardens and forest edge, established in coastal San Diego County from aviary escapes in the 1980s.

In shade the yellow-green dulls to olive-grey and a wing bar shows, which is what suggested a kinglet; the complete, bold white ring round the eye is the mark that does not change with the light, where a kinglet's is broken above the eye. White-eyes work the undersides of leaves for insects and take nectar where they find it, which in a San Diego garden in March is everywhere.

Swinhoe's White-eye

San Diego Botanic Garden, 7 March 2026

A Swinhoe's White-eye in a San Diego garden, an Asian bird established in coastal San Diego County since a small number escaped or were released from aviaries in the 1980s and found the mild climate and garden plantings entirely to their liking. In China and Taiwan, where it comes from, it is a bird of gardens and forest edge, and it has simply carried on.

For years they were recorded as Japanese White-eyes; when that species was split in 2018 the Californian birds, descended from Chinese stock, became Swinhoe's. The bold white eye-ring is the giveaway at any distance; the greenish-yellow body could otherwise pass for any number of small warblers.