White-eyed Vireo

Vireo griseusOrder: PASSERIFORMES Family: Vireos (Vireonidae)

Codes: Common Name: WEVI Scientific Name: VIRGRI ITIS Taxonomic No.: 178991

Birdman Mel's Backyard Tips

Overview

White-eyed Vireo: Medium-sized, secretive vireo with olive-green upperparts, and white underparts with yellow sides and flanks. Spectacles are pale yellow and iris is white. Wings are dark with two white bars. Legs and feet are gray. Flight is fast and direct on short, rounded wings.

Range and Habitat

White-eyed Vireo: Breeds from Nebraska to Massachusetts, south to eastern Mexico and throughout Florida. Winters from the southern Gulf Coast to Central America and from coastal North Carolina, the Bahamas, and Bermuda to the Caribbean. Found in dense thickets, pine flatwoods, cypress swamps, and scrubby edges of roads, canals, and ponds. Avoids urban areas, but may be found in wooded parks and undeveloped areas near and within large cities.

Topo Map: Perching-like Body

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"quick-with the beer check", "tick"

Interesting Facts

The White-eyed Vireo is one of only two perching birds in the U.S. with white eyes. The other, the Wrentit, is only found in the westernmost part of the country.

Their nests are favored by Brown-headed Cowbirds for brood parasitism.

A roughly 400,000 year old wing bone from a White-eyed Vireo is the only fossil record of all vireos in North America.

A group of vireos are collectively known as a "call" of vireos.

Bird Term Glossary

Author

Gary Owen Dick

Percevia^® Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

White-eyed Vireo

● Song: "quick-with the beer check", "tick"

● Foraging & Feeding: White-eyed Vireo: Eats insects, spiders, and small lizards; also eats seeds and berries in fall and winter. Forages in shrubs or dense undergrowth

● Breeding & nesting: White-eyed Vireo: Three to five brown-and-black spotted, white eggs are laid in a deep cup of twigs, rootlets, bark strips, coarse grass, and leaves, and built in a dense thicket 1 to 8 feet above the ground. Incubation ranges from 12 to 16 days and is carried out by both parents.

● Similar species: White-eyed Vireo: Bell's Vireo has broken eye-ring, lacks yellow spectacles, usually shows fainter wing-bars, and has dark eye as an adult. Yellow-throated Vireo resembles White-eyed Vireo juvenile, but has white throat.

Flight Pattern

Rapid direct flight.

White-eyed Vireo Breeding Male Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: White-eyed Vireo: Breeds from Nebraska to Massachusetts, south to eastern Mexico and throughout Florida. Winters from the southern Gulf Coast to Central America and from coastal North Carolina, the Bahamas, and Bermuda to the Caribbean. Found in dense thickets, pine flatwoods, cypress swamps, and scrubby edges of roads, canals, and ponds. Avoids urban areas, but may be found in wooded parks and undeveloped areas near and within large cities.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^PopulationFairly common to common

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.4 Ounces

Perching-like Body

Underparts

Belly, undertail coverts, chest, flanks, and foreneck.

Upperparts

Back, rump, hindneck, wings, and crown.

4 and 6 letter alpha codes

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

Field Guide to Birds of North America

White-eyed Vireo

Birdman Mel's Backyard Tips

Overview

Range and Habitat

Topo Map: Perching-like Body

Listen to Call

Voice Text

Interesting Facts

Bird Term Glossary

Author

Related Birds

White-eyed Vireo

Flight Pattern