Blue-headed Vireo

Vireo solitariusOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Vireos (Vireonidae)

General

Blue-headed Vireo: Medium-sized vireo with olive-green upperparts, white underparts, and yellow flanks. Head has blue-gray hood, white spectacles, and white throat. Wings are dark with two white or pale yellow bars. Sexes are similar. Juvenile is duller.

Range and Habitat

Blue-headed Vireo: Breeds from Connecticut (and southward along crest of the Alleghenies) northward to New Brunswick and Manitoba; Spends winters from Florida southward. Preferred habitats include coniferous and mixed forests.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"cherry-o-wit...cheree...sissy-a-wt"

Interesting Facts

The Blue-headed Vireo, the Plumbeous Vireo, and Cassin's Vireo were formerly considered a single species known as the Solitary Vireo. In 1997, the Blue-headed Vireo reappeared as a distinct species when molecular genetic studies demonstrated differences among the Solitary Vireo complex.

Because the deciduous trees have not leafed out when the vireos arrive on their breeding grounds, most courtship nests and first breeding nests are built in evergreen hemlock trees.

Their dependence upon hemlocks may prove troublesome because this tree is being decimated by an introduced Asian insect, the hemlock wooly adelgid.

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

Author

Gary Owen Dick

Range Map for Blue-headed Vireo Breeding Male

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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.

Blue-headed Vireo

Blue-headed Vireo: Medium-sized vireo with olive-green upperparts, white underparts, and yellow flanks. Head has blue-gray hood, white spectacles, and white throat. The wings are dark with two white or pale yellow bars. Weak, fluttering flight with rapid wing beats. May hover briefly.

● Song: "cherry-o-wit...cheree...sissy-a-wt"

● Foraging & Feeding: Blue-headed Vireo: Feeds mostly on insects, but eats berries in winter. Gleans insects from treetops and branches or flies out to catch insects in mid-air.

● Breeding & nesting: Blue-headed Vireo: Three to five white eggs with black and brown markings at large end are laid in a cup nest made of twigs, grass, shredded bark, stems, spider webs, and cocoons. Nest is lined with grass and hair and built in a tree or bush 4 to 30 feet above the ground. Incubation ranges from 12 to 14 days and is carried out by both parents.

● Similar species: Blue-headed Vireo: Black-capped Vireo has black head.

Flight Pattern

Weak flight on rapidly beating wings.

Blue-headed Vireo Breeding Male Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: Blue-headed Vireo: Breeds from Connecticut (and southward along crest of the Alleghenies) northward to New Brunswick and Manitoba; Spends winters from Florida southward. Preferred habitats include coniferous and mixed forests.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^Population

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.6 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America