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Bird Identification

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Blue-headed Vireo

Vireo solitarius L 5" (13 cm)


listen to the song/call of a blue-headed vireo

Illustration by Julie Zickefoose.

The blue-headed vireo is five inches long and weighs .56 ounces. Its solid gray-blue hood contrasts with its white spectacles (the combination of an eye ring and a supraloral line that contrast with the rest of the face) and throat. The hood of females and immatures is partly gray. All ages have a bright olive back, yellowish wing bars, distinct white on the outer tail, and bright yellow sides and flanks, sometimes mixed with green.

The blue-headed vireo breeds in northeastern woodlands, reaching westward through the boreal forest of the prairie provinces to Alberta, and south in the Appalachians to the Carolinas. They can be found high in forest canopies.

Blue-headeds have a sweet song; high, clear phrases with sweet notes: see you, cheerio, be-seein-u, so-long, seeya.

Bird song courtesy of Lang Elliott, NatureSound Studio.

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