A small yellow-green bird of Japanese woods and gardens. A white ring around the eye gives it its name.
The head and back are yellow-green, with a white eye-ring. Males and females are nearly alike in colour.
Warbling white-eyes form single-species flocks and also move with long-tailed tits, Japanese tits, varied tits and Japanese pygmy woodpeckers. In woodland in Nagoya, white-eyes in mixed-species flocks devoted a smaller proportion of observed behaviour to vigilance than solitary birds or those in white-eye-only flocks.
A study published in 2023 examined observations made at Obata Ryokuchi Park, Nagoya, from January to November 2020, excluding April. Researchers counted flock members and followed birds briefly, recording behaviour every five seconds. Behaviour comparisons used January–March and October–November records. White-eye vigilance also tended to decrease as the number of long-tailed tits in a mixed flock increased. In playback experiments, white-eyes approached calls of their own species and those of long-tailed tits. Responses to Japanese tit calls did not differ clearly from silent controls. Mixed-species flocking thus involves responses to the number and acoustic cues of nearby birds.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
In June 2019, Japan’s Ministry of the Environment reported repeated suspected poaching of Japanese white-eyes in the Yambaru region of northern Okinawa Island. It showed examples of reported trapping equipment, including birdlime and cages with decoys, and asked people to contact Okinawa Prefecture or the ministry if they found suspicious equipment.