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Slaty Vireo | Vireo brevipennis
Leigrijze vireo | Vireo pizarra
The Slaty Vireo is a small vireo found only in the mountains of south-western and central Mexico. Its slate-grey plumage with green edges to the wings and tail and its white eye make it unmistakable among vireos. It keeps hidden in dense scrub.
Voice
The song is a short phrase of clear whistled notes. It also gives scratchy calls like other vireos.
Recording: Manuel Grosselet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm. Head and body slate-grey. Wing and tail feathers edged bright green. Throat and centre of belly white. Eye white. Wings fairly short and rounded.
Confusion species
No other vireo in the guide area is slate-grey with green wing edges. Dwarf Vireo Vireo nelsoni, which lives in the same region, is greyish olive-green with pale wing bars and a dark eye. Grey Vireo Vireo vicinior is paler grey without green and lives mainly further north.
Habitat
Dense, dry to semi-arid scrub on mountain slopes, often in ravines, also thorn scrub, shrubby edges of dry forest and oak scrub, at middle elevations. Forages for insects low in dense vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Only in Mexico: the mountains of the south-west and centre of the country, from Jalisco and Colima through Michoacán, the State of México, Morelos and Guerrero to Puebla and Oaxaca.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
It usually gives itself away by song; in dense scrub patience is needed to see it well.
Conservation status
Not threatened. A local species about which relatively little is known; not uncommon in suitable scrub.
Scientific name
Vireo brevipennis | (Sclater, 1858)
Sclater described the species in 1858 as Neochloe brevipennis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Vireo was introduced in 1808 by Vieillot. Vireo was used by Latin authors for a small, green, migratory bird, probably the Eurasian golden oriole, though the European greenfinch has also been suggested. brevipennis is Latin, from brevis 'short' and penna 'feather, wing', after the short, rounded wings. The specimen the first description was based on came from Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico.