Breeding Location:
Bushes, shrubs, and thickets
Breeding Type:
Monogamous, Solitary nester
Breeding Population:
Egg Color:
Pale to blue green with red brown speckles
Number of Eggs:
3 - 6
Incubation Days:
10
Egg Incubator:
Female
Nest Material:
Mass of sticks, leaves and grasses., Lined with grasses, feathers and plant down.
Migration:
Nonmigratory
Recommended Products:
General
Verdin: Very small songbird with gray upperparts and pale gray underparts. Face and throat are dull yellow; eye-lines are dark. Wings are gray with red-brown shoulder patches. Female is duller. Juvenile lacks yellow on face and throat, and red-brown shoulder patches.
Range and Habitat
Verdin: Resident in the deserts of southwestern North America, from southern California eastward to central Texas and southward to central Mexico. Frequents desert scrub, especially along washes where thorny vegetation is present.
Breeding and Nesting
Verdin: Three to six pale to blue green eggs with red brown speckles are laid in a nest made of sticks, leaves, and grass, held together with spider webs and cocoons, lined with grass, feathers, and plant down, and built from 2 to 20 feet above the ground in a shrubby tree, cactus, or bush. Eggs are incubated for 10 days by the female.
Foraging and Feeding
Verdin: Eats insects, their larvae and eggs, spiders, berries, and fruits; forages among twigs and leaves, sometimes hanging upside down like a chickadee or titmouse.
Vocalization
Verdin: Song is a melancholy, whistled "tswee-swee, tswee", three notes with the second note higher. Call is a quick "tea-nip."
Similar Species
Verdin: Lucy's Warbler resembles juvenile Verdin, but bill is thinner, dark, and without pink-yellow base. Bushtit has smaller, blunter bill and longer tail. Gnatcatchers have longer tails with black-and-white markings.
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