The yellow-throated vireo (Vireo flavifrons) is a small American songbird.
Etymology The generic name Vireo is a Latin word referring to a green migratory bird, perhaps the female golden oriole, or possibly the European greenfinch. The specific name flavifrons is from the Latin words flavus, "yellow", and frons, "forehead".
Description
Adults are mainly olive on the head and upperparts with a yellow throat and white belly; they have dark eyes with yellow "spectacles". The tail and wings are dark with white wing bars. They have thick blue-grey legs and a stout bill.
Measurements:
Length: 5.1–5.9 in (13–15 cm) Weight: 0.5–0.7 oz (15–21 g) Wingspan: 9.1 in (23 cm)
Habitat and distribution Their breeding habitat is open deciduous woods in southern Canada and the eastern United States.
These birds migrate to the deep southern United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. They are very rare vagrants to western Europe; a September 1990 sighting from Kenidjack Valley in Cornwall, Great Britain, and September 1998 from Heligoland, a small German archipelago in the German Bight have been reported.
Diet and behaviour They forage for insects high in trees. They also eat berries, especially before migration and in winter, when they are occasionally seen feeding on gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba) fruit.Foster, Mercedes S. (2007). "The potential of fruiting trees to enhance converted habitats for migrating birds in southern Mexico". Bird Conservation International. 17(1): 45–61. . They make a thick, cup-like nest attached to a fork in a tree branch.
References
External links
Yellow-throated Vireo Species Account—Cornell Lab of Ornithology Yellow-throated Vireo—Vireo flavifrons —USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter Yellow-throated Vireo Bird Sound