Saturday 15 May 2010

Bright Eyes

Last weekend I was mist-netting birds at Mongo National Park with Anthony Overs. Two of the species we caught struck me as having wonderfully coloured irises. The Eastern Spinebill has a fire-engine red eye and the Lewin's Honeyeater a soft-tone blue eye. These are both forest-living, small passerine species. Their eyes are so tiny, yet these birds must have fine perception to pick out such tiny detail. As birds see a different spectrum from us, what do they see when they look into each others' eye?


Eastern Spinebill

Lewin's Honeyeater

Go to Anthony's blog for more details of banding: http://birdbander.blogspot.com/