Plumbeous Vireo

A series of short, rich phrases with little pauses between them. It sounds calm and thoughtful, like the bird is speaking in tiny sentences.

Most birds breeding in the United States migrate to Mexico, but southern populations can be resident and a few birds winter in the Southwest.

Breeds in dry mountain forests and open woodlands, especially pinyon-juniper, ponderosa pine, mixed conifer, and aspen groves. It often likes edges, openings, and wooded stream corridors.

Best found from spring through summer, when males sing from exposed perches in mountain woodlands. By fall it heads south and becomes much quieter and harder to track.

A tidy little vireo of the interior West, washed in cool gray with crisp white "spectacles" around the eye. It moves deliberately through pine and juniper branches, pausing to peer, then snapping up insects with a stout bill.