White-eyed Vireo
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| iWhite-eyed Vireo | ||||||||||||||
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| Vireo griseus (Boddaert, 1783) |
The White-eyed Vireo, Vireo griseus, is a small songbird. It breeds in the southeastern USA from New Jersey west to northern Missouri and south to Texas and Florida, and also in eastern Mexico, Central America, Cuba and the Bahamas.
Populations on the US Gulf coast and further south are resident, but most North American birds migrate south in winter.
This vireo frequents bushes and shrubs in abandoned cultivation or overgrown pastures. The grass-lined nest is a neat cup shape, attached to a fork in a tree branch by spider webs. 3-5 dark-spotted white eggs are laid. Both the male and female incubate the eggs for 12 - 16 days. The young leave the nest 9 - 11 days after hatching.
The White-eyed Vireo is 13 – 15 cm in length. Its head and back are a greyish olive, and the underparts are white with yellow flanks. The wings and tail are dark, and there are two white wing bars on each wing. The eyes have white irises, and are surrounded by yellow spectacles. Sexes are similar.
The resident Florida Keys race, V. g. maynardi, is greyer above and whiter below, and the south Texan V. g. micrus is like a smaller maynardi.
The White-eyed Vireo's song is a variable and rapid six to seven note phrase, starting and ending with a sharp chick.
The diet of this species consists almost exclusively of insects in the breeding season, supplemented by berries in the autumn and winter.
A sub-species, V. g. bermudianus, is endemic to Bermuda. This has shorter wings and a duller plumage. Along with other endemic and native Bermudian birds, it was threatened with extinction following the loss of 8 million Bermuda cedar trees in the 1940s, and is now quite rare.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Vireo griseus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
