Only
rarely is a nest found so far south as the White Mountains. It is said to be
extraordinarily large for so small a bird but that need not surprise us when
we learn that as many as ten
creamy-white eggs, blotched with brown and lavender, are no uncommon number
for the pensile cradle to hold. How do the tiny parents contrive to cover so
many eggs and to feed such a nestful of fledglings?
SOLITARY VIREO (Vireo solitarius) Vireo or Greenlet family
Called also: BLUE-HEADED VIREO [AOU 1998]
Length -- 5.5 to 7 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.
Male -- Dusky olive above; head bluish gray, with a white line
around the eye, spreading behind the eye into a patch. Beneath
whitish, with yellow-green wash on the sides. Wings dusky
olive, with two distinct white bars. Tail dusky, some quills
edged with white.
Female -- Similar, but her head is dusky olive.
Range -- United States to plains, and the southern British
provinces. Winters in Florida and southward.
Migrations -- May. Early October. Common during migrations; more
rarely a summer resident south of Massachusetts.
By no means the recluse that its name would imply, the solitary vireo, while a
bird of the woods, shows a charming curiosity about the stranger with
opera-glasses in hand, who has penetrated to the deep, swampy tangles, where
it chooses to live.
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