Warbling Vireo (Vireo gilvus)

County List:

Rule:

Mixed Forested/Nonforested Landscapes

1st alternative:
      (Any Upland Deciduous (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Mixed Northern Hardwoods (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Mixed Upland Hardwoods (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Any Lowland Deciduous (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Mixed Lowland Hardwoods (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
   adjacent to:
      (Edge or Riparian)

2nd alternative:
      Upland Brush
      or Savanna

Habitat List:

view size class definitions

Literature:

Habitat: The Warbling Vireo prefers very open deciduous and mixed deciduous-coniferous woodland, such as riparian forest, shrub woodland, orchards, open areas with scattered trees, and treelines along fence rows and roadsides. The typical vireo pensile-cup nest is usually located 10 to 15 m up in the fork of a horizontal branch of a large tree; therefore, mature forest growth is generally required.

In the Atlas Habitat Survey, the single most frequently recorded category for the Warbling Vireo was residential-roadside-hedgerow habitat. However, a variety of forest habitats made up a majority of Warbling Vireo observations, with mesic, dry, and wet deciduous forest together accounting for most of these. Observations in the mixed forest were few and there were no reports from coniferous forest. Shrub upland and shrub wetland habitats were also represented in the survey.

Habitat: Breeding: Open mixed or deciduous woodlands, roadside and village shade trees, riverbottoms with mature trees, orchards. Avoids high elevations.

Special Habitat Requirements: Deciduous trees.

Habitat: Deciduous and mixed woods, aspen groves, poplars, shade trees. Breeds in open deciduous or mixed woodland; also in orchards, shade trees of towns. Avoids unbroken mature forest. In the east, often in isolated groves near water.

Feeding: Mostly insects, some berries. In breeding season, feeds mainly on insects, including many caterpillars, plus aphids, beetles, grasshoppers, ants, bugs, scale insects, flies, dragonflies; also eats some spiders and snails. Takes berries and small fruits from bunchberry, dogwoods, pokeweed, sumac, elderberry, poison-oak, and many other plants, especially in late summer and fall.

Nest: In the east, usually placed high in tree, up to 90 feet. Generally in deciduous tree or shrub. Nest is a compact, deep cup, suspended by its rim from a forked twig. Nest made of bark strips, grass, leaves, and plant fibers. Commonly parasitized by cowbirds.

Conservation Status: Since it favors open woods and edges, probably increased in some areas initially with clearing and breaking up of forest.