In the heat of a midsummer noon, when nearly every other bird's voice is
hushed, and only the locust seems to rejoice in the fierce sunshine, the
little red-eyed vireo goes persistently about its business of gathering
insects from the leaves, not flitting nervously about like a warbler, or
taking its food on the wing like a flycatcher, but patiently and industriously
dining where it can, and singing as it goes.
When a worm is caught it is first shaken against a branch to kill it before it
is swallowed. Vireos haunt shrubbery and trees with heavy foliage, all their
hunting, singing, resting, and home-building being done among the leaves --
never on the ground.
WHITE-EYED VIREO (Vireo noveboracensis) Vireo or Greenlet family
Male -- 5 to 5.3 inches. An inch shorter than the English
sparrow.
Male and Female -- Upper parts bright olive-green, washed with
grayish. Throat and underneath white; the breast and sides
greenish yellow; wings have two distinct bars of yellowish
white. Yellow line from beak to and around the eye, which has a
white iris. Feathers of wings and tail brownish and edged with
yellow.
Range -- United States to the Rockies, and to the Gulf regions
And beyond in winter.
Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
"Pertest of songsters," the white-eyed vireo makes whatever neighborhood it
enters lively at once.
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