Gray Vireo singing from the nest , Mesa County

[John D]

CO Birders :

While visiting my son in New Castle this past weekend , I took the opportunity to do an early morning visit to Cameo and Coal Canyon in Mesa county before it got too hot and the motor bikes and ATV's started up.

I did get to see and photograph Chukar my target bird , male and female , they seem to have moved much further up Coal Canyon than previous years , probably because of the active shooting range in the lower part of the Canyon.

And I did find a Gray Vireo nest in juniper in Coal Canyon , took me over half an hour to find it , could hear the bird singing but just could not see it despite being only 6 feet from the sound . So eventually I found the nest and the bill of the vireo just poking above the rim of the nest . My question is what sex was this bird , can both male and female vireos sing the same song from the nest ?. It was singing the same song as on Sibley.

John Drummond

Colorado Springs 

[Nathan Pieplow]

John et al,

The Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds says that female Gray Vireos are known to sing occasonally, but usually only a few phrases at a time. Birds of North America says that both sexes of Gray Vireo alternate egg-sitting duties during the day. So I'm not sure it's possible to say whether your nest-singing bird was a male or a female.

Cool sighting.

Nathan Pieplow

Boulder

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[lynn wickersham]

We have studied Gray Vireos for over 10 years and have monitored hundreds of nests. We frequently find nests with sitting, singing males but have never observed females singing on nests. While females do sometimes sing a few notes, as we've observed it this behavior generally seems to occur also when their mates are singing, as sort of a courtship ritual and/or contact call. Sometimes they sing some notes and also squeaky calls and their distinctive trill prior to copulation. When they do sing, it is usually a few notes at a time, noticeably different than the males, with softer, shorter notes, and not nearly as extensive or melodic as the males. 

Lynn Wickersham

Durango

[Jared Del Rosso]

I've never seen a Gray Vireo, but this is a great sighting and info. Thanks for sharing, all! 

- Jared Del Rosso
Centennial, CO

[Greg Levandoski]

Hi John,

Lynn's response is in line with my nest monitoring experience with vireos.  To add a little depth to the topic, male Bell's, Warbling and Hutton's vireos also all sing from the nest, which makes nest finding for these species easier than most.  Females often make a scolding call when they've just swapped places with the male and he's begun singing from the nest.  Anthropomorphize that as you like...  These are just the species I have personal experience with, so I would guess that this behavior is also present in other vireo species.

Greg Levandoski

Bellvue, CO

On Thursday, May 28, 2020 at 6:48:30 AM UTC-6, lynn wickersham wrote: