All species › Passerines › Shrike-babblers, Erpornis and vireos › Black-whiskered Vireo
Black-whiskered Vireo | Vireo altiloquus
Baardvireo | Vireo bigotudo | Juruviara-barbuda
The Black-whiskered Vireo is a large, greenish-brown vireo with a dark malar stripe. It breeds in Florida and on the islands of the Caribbean and winters in Amazonia. In the guide area it is mainly a winter visitor and passage migrant; on the Colombian islands of San Andrés and Providencia distinct subspecies live year-round.
Voice
The song consists of short phrases of two or three notes separated by pauses, similar to Red-eyed Vireo but shorter and sharper, often rendered as john-phil-lip. The call is a nasal, mewing nyeeah. It sings little in its winter quarters.
Recording: Noah Khanti Steinberg — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
15–16 cm, with a fairly long, heavy bill. The upperparts are dull olive-green to brownish olive, the crown greyer with a narrow dark border. A white supercilium and a dark eye-stripe; below this a narrow black malar stripe along the throat. The underparts are white, with a dull yellow wash on the flanks and undertail coverts. The iris is red in adults, brown in young birds. No wing bars. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Red-eyed Vireo Vireo olivaceus lacks the malar stripe, has a more obviously grey crown with a sharper black border and a shorter bill. Yellow-green Vireo Vireo flavoviridis has a less marked head pattern, no malar stripe and yellower flanks and undertail coverts. In worn or young birds the malar stripe is sometimes narrow; then note the heavy bill and duller colour.
Habitat
In winter in the canopy of humid lowland forest, forest edges, riparian forest and várzea, mostly below 1000 m. On the islands in mangroves, scrub, gardens and dry woodland. It searches for caterpillars and other insects in the foliage and eats much fruit in winter. The nest is a hanging cup in a branch fork.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: passage migrant along the Caribbean coast and winter visitor in the Amazon and Orinoco regions; resident on San Andrés and Providencia. Ecuador: scarce winter visitor in the eastern lowlands. Peru: scarce winter visitor in Amazonia. Bolivia: few records, in the north. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area it breeds in Florida and the Caribbean, and winters mainly in Brazil and Venezuela.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look between October and March in mixed flocks in the canopy of lowland forest and at fruiting trees along rivers. On San Andrés and Providencia it sings in the breeding season from shrubs and trees in and around the villages.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The population is large and widespread; habitat is lost locally through deforestation in the winter quarters and building on the islands.
Scientific name
Vireo altiloquus | (Vieillot, 1808)
Vieillot described the species in 1808 as Muscicapa altiloqua; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Vireo was introduced in 1808 by Vieillot. The genus name is Latin vireo, a green migratory bird, perhaps the female golden oriole or the greenfinch; related to virere, 'to be green'. The species name comes from Latin altiloquus, 'speaking loudly', from altus, 'high', and loqui, 'to speak', for the loud song. The specimen the first description was based on came from Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.