Yellow-throated Vireo Singing
Early this morning, a Red-eyed Vireo, Pine Warbler and Great Crested Flycatcher welcomed a warm, gray, showery day with song. Although the rain never amounted to more than very light showers, the weather seemed to encourage birds to be active.
All afternoon as I worked, office windows open beside me, I could hear a succession of bird songs and calls in and around the back yard – a Scarlet Tanager’s CHICK-brrrr, the cooing of a Mourning Dove, the songs of Red-eyed Vireo, Eastern Phoebe, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, Eastern Bluebird, Carolina Wren, the twitter of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird coming to the feeder, the squeaky chatter of Brown-headed Nuthatches, the mews of American Goldfinches, the fussing of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees – even the nasal calls of a White-breasted Nuthatch, an uncommon visitor here, though more frequent in the past few months.
Best of all, late in the afternoon I heard the unmistakable three-eight phrase and burry, mellow song of a Yellow-throated Vireo, very nearby. Yellow-throated Vireos used to be fairly common here in the summer season, but seem to have become much less common, and this is the first one I’ve heard this season except for two or three occasions when I could hear one singing very far away. A Yellow-throated Vireo song is usually described as a series of two and three-syllable phrases. To me it sounds somewhat similar to a Red-eyed Vireo, but slower, lower, with longer pauses and a more sultry, deliberative quality. One of the phrases very often sounds like a clear “three-eight.”
This one sang from the pines, oaks and sweet gums at the southeast corner of our back yard, right outside my window. I was afraid that if I went outside it would fly, so I watched through the window screen and listened, and after three or four minutes could trace it moving through the foliage, though mostly it stayed screened by leaves. It sang with very long pauses between phrases, and seemed to give the three-eight phrase most often. Finally it came out into a mostly clear spot for just a few moments, showing its greenish head and back, deep yellow throat and white belly. I couldn’t really see the yellow “spectacles” around its eye well at all, but could see its bill opening as it leaned its head back and sang. It disappeared again into the sweet gum leaves and continued to make its way through the trees, now moving further away, and then flew.