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Photo credit: Jean-Guy Dallaire

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The Warbling Vireo, Vireo gilvus, is a small songbird.

Adults are 12 cm long and weigh 12 g. They are mainly olive-grey on the head and upperparts with white underparts; they have brown eyes and the front of the face is light. There is a white supercilium. They have thick blue-grey legs and a stout bill. Western birds are generally smaller.

Their breeding habitat is open deciduous and mixed woods across most of North America, from Alaska to Mexico. They make a deep cup nest suspended from a tree branch or shrub, placed relatively high in the east and lower in the west. The male helps with incubation and may sing from the nest.

These birds migrate to Mexico and Central America.

They forage for insects in trees, hopping along branches and sometimes hovering. They also eat berries, especially before migration.

Their song is a cheerful warble, similar to that of the Painted Bunting. There are subtle differences in song between eastern and western birds.

The Brown-capped Vireo, a resident species in Central America and northern South America is sometimes considered to be conspecific with Warbling Vireo.

References

* Hilty, Birds of Venezuela ISBN 0-7136-6418-5
* Stiles and Skutch, A guide to the birds of Costa Rica ISBN 0-0814-9600-4