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Yellow-green Vireo | Vireo flavoviridis
Geelgroene vireo | Vireo verdeamarillo
The Yellow-green Vireo is a green vireo with a grey crown and bright yellow flanks and undertail coverts. It breeds across much of the guide area and winters in South America.
Voice
The song consists of short, rapidly repeated phrases with brief pauses, hoarser and faster than in Red-eyed Vireo. It also sings in the middle of the day.
Recording: Noah Khanti Steinberg — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15 cm. Crown grey, without a distinct black border above the whitish supercilium; dark eye-stripe. Back bright olive-green. Underparts white, flanks and undertail coverts bright yellow. Eye reddish in adults. Bill fairly long and strong.
Confusion species
Red-eyed Vireo Vireo olivaceus has a black border between the grey crown and the white supercilium, less yellow on the flanks, and is mainly a passage migrant in the guide area. Yucatan Vireo Vireo magister is browner, with a dull supercilium and a heavier bill. Black-whiskered Vireo Vireo altiloquus has a narrow black malar stripe.
Habitat
Forest edges, secondary forest, gallery forest, dry forest, plantations and gardens with tall trees, mainly in the lowlands and foothills. It searches the canopy for insects and also eats fruit.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds from north-western and north-eastern Mexico to Panama, on both slopes of the guide area. Winters in the Amazon basin in South America.
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the breeding season one of the commonest vireos at forest edges and in gardens in the lowlands; note the yellow flanks and the hoarse, continuous song.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common to very common as a breeding bird.
Scientific name
Vireo flavoviridis | (Cassin, 1851)
Cassin described the species in 1851 as Vireosylvia flavoviridis; 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. flavoviridis is Latin, from flavus 'yellow' and viridis 'green', after the yellow-green tones. The specimen the first description was based on came from San Juan de Nicaragua, Nicaragua.