The brown-capped vireo (''Vireo leucophrys'') is a small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

. It breeds in highlands from southern

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

south to northwestern

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

. It is sometimes considered to be conspecific with the similar

warbling vireo The warbling vireo (''Vireo gilvus'') is a small North American songbird. Its breeding habitat is open deciduous and mixed woods from Alaska to Mexico and the Florida Panhandle. It often nests in widely spaced trees, often cottonwood or aspen, ...

. The adult brown-capped vireo is 12–12.7 cm in length and weighs 12 g. It has olive-green upperparts and a brown crown. There is a brown line from the bill through the eyes, and a white

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

. The face and throat are off-white, and the underparts are otherwise yellow with some olive on the flanks. Young birds are buff-brown above with a weaker supercilium. The brown-capped vireo has a sharp call and the song is a rich warbled ''here you see me hear me sing so sweet'', reminiscent of that of the

. This

vireo The vireos make up a family, Vireonidae, of small to medium-sized passerine birds found in the New World (Canada to Argentina, including Bermuda and the West Indies) and Southeast Asia. "Vireo" is a Latin word referring to a green migratory bir ...

occurs in the canopy and middle levels of light woodland, the edges of forest, and other semi-open habitats at altitudes from 500 to 2500 m.Hilty (2003), Strewe & Navarro (2004) Brown-capped vireos feed on

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...

s and other

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

gleaned Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. It is a practice described in the Hebrew Bible that became a legall ...

from tree foliage. They also eat small fruits. They will join

mixed-species feeding flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...

s. The nest is undescribed.

Footnotes

References

* Hilty, Steven L. (2003): ''Birds of Venezuela''.

Christopher Helm Christopher Alexander Roger Helm (born Dundee, 1 February 1937 – 20 January 2007) was a Scottish book publisher, notably of ornithology related titles, including the ''Helm Identification Guides''. Born in Dundee, he was raised in Forfar, w ...

, London. * Stiles, F. Gary & Skutch, Alexander Frank (1989): ''A guide to the birds of Costa Rica''. Comistock, Ithaca. * Strewe, Ralf & Navarro, Cristobal (2004): New and noteworthy records of birds from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region, north-eastern Colombia. '' Bull. B.O.C.'' 124(1): 38–51
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q2667703 brown-capped vireo Birds of Central America Birds of the Northern Andes brown-capped vireo Taxa named by Frédéric de Lafresnaye