The white-eyed vireo (''Vireo griseus'') is a small

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5000 ...

of the family Vireonidae.

Distribution and habitat

It breeds in the eastern United States from

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

west to northern

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

and south to

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

and

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

, and also in eastern Mexico, northern

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...

and the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...

. Populations on the US

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coast, coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The list of U.S. states and territories by coastline, coastal states that have a shor ...

and further south are resident, but most

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

n birds migrate south in winter. This vireo frequents bushes and shrubs in abandoned cultivation or overgrown pastures.

Breeding

The grass-lined nest is a neat cup shape, attached to a fork in a tree branch by

spider Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

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 a variable and rapid six to seven note phrase, starting and ending with a sharp ''chick''.

Diet

During the breeding season, the diet of this species consists almost exclusively of

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 pa ...

s, primarily

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 Sy ...

s. In the autumn and winter it supplements its diet of

s with

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, ras ...

Taxonomy

The white-eyed vireo was described by the French polymath

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent ...

in 1780 in his '' Histoire naturelle des oiseaux''. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by

François-Nicolas Martinet François-Nicolas Martinet (1731 - 1800) was a French engineer, engraver and naturalist. Martinet engraved the plates for numerous works on natural history, especially ornithology. Notable in particular are those for ''l'Ornithologia, sive Synop ...

in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle'' which was produced under the supervision of

Edme-Louis Daubenton Edme-Louis Daubenton (12 August 1730 – 12 December 1785) was a French naturalist. Daubenton was the cousin of another French naturalist, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton. Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to su ...

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 Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795) was a Dutch physician and naturalist. Early life, family and education Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the Unive ...

coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bo ...

''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 Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

'' Vireo'' was introduced in 1808 by the French ornithologist

Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collec ...

. The word ''vireo'' was used by Latin authors for a small green migratory bird, probably a

Eurasian golden oriole The Eurasian golden oriole (''Oriolus oriolus'') also called the common golden oriole, is the only member of the Old World oriole family of passerine birds breeding in Northern Hemisphere temperate regions. It is a summer migrant in Europe and ...

but a

European greenfinch The European greenfinch or simply the greenfinch (''Chloris chloris'') is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. This bird is widespread throughout Europe, North Africa and Southwest Asia. It is mainly resident, but some n ...

has also been suggested. The specific epithet ''griseus'' is

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...

for grey. Six

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics ( morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all specie ...

are recognised: * ''V. g. griseus'' ( Boddaert, 1783) – central and east USA (includes ''noveboracensis'') * ''V. g. maynardi'' Brewster, 1887 – south Florida (southeast USA) * ''V. g. bermudianus'' Bangs & Bradlee, 1901 – Bermuda * ''V. g. micrus'' Nelson, 1899 – south Texas (south USA) 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 A coastal plain is flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and a piedmont area. Some of the largest coastal plains are in Alaska and the southeastern United States. The Gulf Co ...

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 The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago located off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and e ...

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 ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = "Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , es ...

, where it is known as the ''Chick of the Village''. 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. This species is listed under the Bermuda Protected Species Act 2003.

Gallery

File:White-eyed vireo (Vireo griseus) at Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge.jpg, White-eyed vireo (Vireo griseus) at Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge File:White-eyed Vireo.jpg, White-eyed Vireo File:White-eyed vireo (Vireo griseus bermudianus) in Fiddlewood (Citharexylum spinosum), Bermuda.jpg, Vireo griseus bermudianus in Bermuda File:White-eyed vireo (Vireo griseus bermudianus) in Bermuda.jpg, White-eyed vireo (Vireo griseus bermudianus) in Bermuda File:White-eyed Vireo by Alastair Rae.jpg, White-eyed Vireo by Alastair Rae

References

External links

Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the white-eyed vireo
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology

(includes White-eyed Vireo photo)
White-eyed Vireo Bird Sound
at Florida Museum of Natural History * * * {{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 Birds of Mexico white-eyed vireo white-eyed vireo Extant Late Pleistocene first appearances