White-eyed Vireo

The white-eyed vireo (''Vireo griseus'') is a small songbird of the family Vireonidae.

Distribution and habitat

It breeds in the eastern United States from New England west to northern Missouri and south to Texas and Florida, and also in eastern Mexico, northern 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.

Breeding

They nest near the ground in tangled thickets, they are made of weeds, leaves, grass, bark or any trash. The grass-lined nest is a neat cup shape, attached to a fork in a tree branch by spider webs. It lays 3–5 dark-spotted white eggs. Both the male and female incubate the eggs for 12–16 days. The young leave the nest 9–11 days after hatching.

Description

Measurements:

* Length: 4.3–5.1 in (11–13 cm)
* Weight: 0.3–0.5 oz (10–14 g)
* Wingspan: 6.7 in (17 cm)

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.

Call

The white-eyed vireo's song is highly variable, consisting of a rapid series of notes bookended by sharp 'chip' notes.

Diet

During the breeding season, the diet of this species consists almost exclusively of insects, primarily caterpillars and stink bugs (Pentatomidae); beetles, flies, wasps, snails, and very rarely small vertebrates are also consumed. In the autumn and winter it supplements its diet of insects with berries.

Taxonomy

The white-eyed vireo was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his '' Histoire naturelle des oiseaux''. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle'' which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name ''Tanagra grisea'' in his catalogue of the ''Planches Enluminées''. Buffon specified that his specimen had come from Louisiana, but in 1945 the type locality was restricted to New Orleans. The white-eyed vireo is now placed in the genus ''Vireo'' was introduced in 1808 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot. The word ''vireo'' was used by Latin authors for a small green migratory bird, probably a Eurasian golden oriole but a European greenfinch has also been suggested. The specific epithet ''griseus'' is Medieval Latin for grey.

Six subspecies are recognised:
* ''V. g. griseus'' (Boddaert, 1783) – central and east US (includes ''noveboracensis'')
* ''V. g. maynardi'' Brewster, 1887 – south Florida (southeast US)
* ''V. g. bermudianus'' Bangs & Bradlee, 1901 – Bermuda
* ''V. g. micrus'' Nelson, 1899 – south Texas (south US) and northeast Mexico
* ''V. g. perquisitor'' Nelson, 1900 – east Mexico
* ''V. g. marshalli'' Phillips, AR, 1991 – east central Mexico

The northern subspecies, ''V. g. noveboracensis'', occupies most of the range of this species and is fully migratory. This sub-species is larger and has more brightly colored plumage than all other subspecies.

The resident southeastern coastal plain race, ''V. g. griseus'' is a slightly smaller and duller colored subspecies. It does not typically migrate out of its breeding range in the winter.

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''.

''V. g. bermudianus'' is endemic to Bermuda, where it is known as the ''Chick of the Village''. This subspecies has shorter wings and a duller plumage than its mainland conspecifics. 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, though the population is currently estimated to be stable at approximately 2000 individuals. This species is listed under the Bermuda Protected Species Act 2003.

Gallery

File:White-eyed Vireo.jpg, White-eyed vireo
File:White-eyed vireo (Vireo griseus bermudianus) in Fiddlewood (Citharexylum spinosum), Bermuda.jpg, The Bermuda subspecies pictured here, ''Vireo griseus bermudianus'', has shorter wings and duller colour than its mainland conspecifics.
File:White-eyed Vireo by Alastair Rae.jpg, White-eyed vireo

References

External links

Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the white-eyed vireoWhite-eyed Vireo Species Account
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology


(includes White-eyed Vireo photo)

White-eyed Vireo Bird Sound
at Florida Museum of Natural History
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q512812

white-eyed vireo
Native birds of the Eastern United States
Native birds of the Southeastern United States
Birds of the Rio Grande valleys
Meso-American wintering birds
white-eyed vireo
white-eyed vireo
Extant Late Pleistocene first appearances