Red-eyed Vireo

About the Red-eyed Vireo

The Red-eyed Vireo is the tireless voice of the summer woods - a trim, olive-backed songbird with a gray cap, bold white eyebrow bordered in black, and, in adults, a ruby-red eye visible at close range. It is heard far more than seen, singing short robin-like phrases from the canopy over and over, all day, even in July heat; one patient observer counted more than 22,000 songs from a single bird in a day.

Red-eyed Vireos move deliberately through the leaves, peering under foliage for caterpillars and holding prey with a foot to pull it apart. They hang a neat cup nest from a forked twig and are among the commonest hosts of the Brown-headed Cowbird. In fall they switch to fruit and head for the Amazon basin.

In Texas the Red-eyed Vireo is a summer breeder in the wooded eastern half of the state west to the oak woodlands of Central Texas, and a common migrant statewide - a bird of tall shade trees along creeks and in older neighborhoods around Austin.