Blue-headed Vireo

Scientific Name: Vireo solitarius

Range / Habitat: Breeds through the northeastern US and eastern Canada. Winters on the southeast coast of the US, the Gulf coast of Mexico (excluding the Yucatan), and into Central America. Preferred habitat is forest of various types.

Field Notes: Small to medium passerine, grey upperparts, generally white underneath, with two white wing bars and distinct white spectacles. Yellow wash to sides but throated white. Plumbeous Vireo and Cassin's Vireo similar (all three formerly called Solitary Vireo), but distinguished by range.  Yellow-throated Vireo with yellow throat and head.

Personal Notes: We followed this bird for a long time at Fort Snelling SP in Minnesota, where he was just passing through as a spring migrant, and only barely were able to capture him on film.

Philadelphia Vireo

Scientific Name: Vireo philadelphicus

Range / Habitat: Breeds in deciduous forest throughout central and eastern Canada. Winters in Central America, up through the Yucatan in a wider habitat range. 

Field Notes: Small, plain-winged vireo with white eyestripe and buffy to yellow throat. Warbling Vireo similar but easily distinguished by song. Other vireos have either wing bars or pronounced spectacles. 

Personal Notes: Seen during spring migration in Fort Snelling SP in Minnesota. Verified both visually and by song. 

Lesser Greenlet

Scientific Name: Hylophilus decurtatus

Range / Habitat: Year-round in humid forest of southern Mexico, including Yucatan, Central American and just barely into northwestern South America.

Field Notes: Small passerine, with pale yellow underparts, olive wings and back, grey head. Compared to similarly-sized passerines, large head with stubby tail. As with all greenlets, sexes are similar.

Personal Notes: We had previously seen, but not photographed, this bird in Costa Rica. We came across it again in Cancun, Mexico where Richard persevered in both the photo and the identification.

Hutton's Vireo

Scientific Name: Vireo huttoni

Population Estimate: Unknown, but Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Year-rould in forested areas in along the US Pacific coast, southwestern US and northern Mexico.

Field Notes: Small active bird, greenish gray above and below, white eye-ring broken above eye and two white wing bars.

Personal Notes: Trust us when we say the above bird had those features. This flitty creature was seen in the southern end of the Apache-Sitgreaves NF in Arizona.

Red-eyed Vireo

Scientific Name: Vireo olivaceus

Population Estimate: 140M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Lowland forest of the US and Canada, excluding the far American West, in summer. Full migrant to forests of northern and eastern South America.

Field Notes: Small drab bird with olive back and white underneath. Crown grey, eyebrow white with thin black eye stripe. Eyes dark red. Song distinctive, a series of broken, slurred phrases alternating upswing and downswing.

Personal Notes: We've probably heard and even seen this common bird before our first confirmed sighting in the Spearfish, South Dakota city park. We later found this bird in migration at the El Rey ruins in Cancun, Mexico. Then, finally, at home in Minnesota. 

Yellow-throated Vireo

Scientific Name: Vireo flavifrons

Population Estimate: 1.4M

Range / Habitat: Breeds in the deciduous forests of eastern US and Canada. Winters in tropical and subtropical lowland moist forest of southern Mexico through northern South America.

Field Notes: Small songbird with yellow head and throat contrasting with white belly and grey wings and back. Distinct yellow spectacles and two prominent white wing bars.

Plumbeous Vireo

Scientific Name: Vireo plumbeus

Population Estimate: 2.7M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Winters in western Mexico in montane moist forest. Summers in the southern Rockies and the Great Basin. it is a small North American songbird, ranging from far southeastern Montana and western South Dakota south to the Pacific coast of Mexico, including the extreme southern regions of Baja California Sur.

Field Notes: All grey head, back and tail with two weak, white wing bars. White spectacles are pronounced. White underneath, completely lacking yellow coloring of most other vireos. The Grey Vireo overlaps in range, but has a complete, thin eye ring and only one weak wing bar. At first glance may also be confused with a Blue-grey Gnatcatcher, who is smaller with longer tail, thinner bill, complete and narrow eye ring, and no wing bars.

Personal Notes: Formerly lumped as a "Solitary Vireo" with the more eastern Blue-headed Vireo and more northwestern Cassin's Vireo.

White-eyed Vireo

Scientific Name: Vireo griseus

Order: Passeriformes

Population Estimate: 17M

Location of Sighting: Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Date of Sighting: December, 2009

Notes: Positive ID by guide. Again, another difficulty bird to ID from photo due to the lighting. But this bird has yellowish spectacles and a white eye (compared to black eye of Mangrove Vireo).