Eastern Warbling Vireo

Overview
ID info
Life History
Maps
Sounds

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ID Info

Adult

Eastern Warbling Vireo by Ryan Schain / Macaulay Library

Vireos

Eastern Warbling VireoVireo gilvus

ORDER: Passeriformes
FAMILY: Vireonidae

HabitatOpen Woodlands
FoodInsects
NestingTree
BehaviorFoliage Gleaner
ConservationNot Evaluated

Basic Description

The rich song of the Eastern Warbling Vireo is a common sound in many parts of eastern and central North America during summer. It’s a great bird to learn by ear, because its fast, rollicking song is its most distinctive feature. Otherwise, Eastern Warbling Vireos are fairly plain birds with gray-olive upperparts and white underparts washed with faint yellow. They have a mild face pattern with a whitish stripe over the eye. They stay high in deciduous treetops, where they move methodically among the leaves hunting for caterpillars.

More ID Info

Year-roundBreedingMigrationNonbreeding

Range map provided by Birds of the World

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Find This Bird

You can likely find Eastern Warbling Vireos in almost any sizable deciduous woodland. They are fairly drab and tend to stay high in trees, so find them by listening for their loud, caroling song. Because of their habitually slow foraging speed, you can often track down the singer fairly easily.

Other Names

Vireo Gorjeador Oriental (Spanish)
Viréo mélodieux (French)

Cool Facts
- In 2025, ornithologists split Warbling Vireo into two species—Eastern Warbling Vireo and Western Warbling Vireo—based on subtle differences in measurements, plumage, and song, as well as genetic differences.
- Eastern Warbling Vireos have a good name—males and occasionally females sing a fast, up-and-down, rollicking song that suits the word “warbling.” The highly variable song usually ends on a high note, leading the birder Pete Dunne to describe it as sounding “like a happy drunk making a conversational point at a party.”
- Brown-headed Cowbirds sometimes lay their eggs in the nests of Eastern and Western Warbling Vireos. However, female Eastern Warbling Vireos are adept at puncturing and ejecting most of the cowbird eggs they find. This makes Eastern Warbling Vireo the smallest species known to reject Brown-headed Cowbird eggs in this way. Curiously, Western Warbling Vireos are much less likely to reject cowbird eggs.