Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Elusive Red-Eyed Vireo

By: Tom Berg

There are many birds that are often heard but rarely seen. One of those is the elusive Red-Eyed Vireo. These birds are a dull olive-green color above with a white breast. Their head coloration helps with identification – they often have a bright red eye and a dark eye-stripe, with a distinctive white stripe above the eye. The top of their head is a grayish-brown color.

Red-eyed vireos are slightly smaller than a sparrow, and weigh less than an ounce. Their relatively long beak has a small hook at the tip which they use to tear apart large prey like oversized caterpillars and big beetles and cicadas. They also use it to help open different fruits that they eat, especially on their wintering grounds in the Amazon basin in South America.

During the summer, red-eyed vireos usually hunt for food high up in the forest canopy. Caterpillars and a variety of insects and spiders are their normal summertime prey. Small fruits like raspberries, blackberries, choke cherries, dogwood berries and others are also eaten when they are in season. During the winter in South America they eat fruit almost exclusively.

Unlike the hyper warblers that seem to be on the move constantly as they search for insects, red-eyed vireos tend to move more slowly and deliberately through the trees and tree branches. As mentioned, one of their favorite snacks is a nice, juicy caterpillar, and caterpillars are not known for their speed! Like all vireos, however, red-eyed vireos are quite agile as can be seen by the bird in this photo. This red-eyed vireo was hanging upside down while holding on to an oak leaf!

Surprisingly, not all red-eyed vireos have red eyes. The red eye color does not appear in most of these birds until the end of their first winter. Until then, their eyes are dark brown. Adults have red eyes of varying brightness, too; some individuals have very bright red eyes while others have more subdued, darker red eyes. They are definitely interesting birds!

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