Yellow-throated Vireo

In the morning on the last day of June, a Yellow-throated Vireo sang in the treetops around the edge of the woods behind our neighbor’s house and ours, the first time I’ve heard one in several weeks – and I’ve missed them this summer, so it was a particular pleasure to hear.

The mellow four-phrase song sounded rich and full, a riper version of the Red-eyed Vireo’s crisp refrain.

With its bright yellow throat and yellow spectacles around the eyes, greenish-gray head and back, and white wing bars, a Yellow-throated Vireo is one of our more colorful summer birds, rather sturdy in shape.

Much later, as a long, cloudy twilight faded, lots of lightning bugs flashed low over the grass and up into the lower branches of trees, and two bats circled over open areas, against a murky orange and pink sky. Cicadas still sang, and a few katydids were beginning.

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