Vireos of Texas

Thought I’d do at least 1 High Island warm-up post. This time a brief reminder on the 12 regular Texas vireos. Plus 1 rarity.

The 1st key to vireos is their song!! Learn it!! Most are quite distinctive, the exception being the 3 in the Solitary Vireo complex.

The photos tell most of the visual story: there are plain-winged and there are wing-barred vireos. 5 of the 12 are fairly easy IDs. The Solitary Vireo complex is a bit harder and I’ll tackle it in a later post from out west.

That leaves 4 intermediate in difficulty. In class I put Gray and Bell’s in this group so I’ll leave them as “intermediate”, but they are really not that hard. For Bell’s it’s song, song, song!!!! For Gray it’s the tail up-wag and location .

That leaves Warbling and Philadelphia. The keys are eye-lines and “where’s the yellow?”

Eye-lines (especially lores): think Chipping vs Clay-colored Sparrows. Chipping and Philly have dark lores.

Where’s the yellow?:

Brightest yellow in the center (throat and breast) = Philly. (Philly was a center of American revolution).

Brightest yellow on the flanks = Warbling