Black-whiskered Vireo

IDENTIFICATION: A small forest bird with an olive colored back, a thick bill, and black lines both through the eye and just below the bill (the "whisker"). Length: 15-17 cm.; weight: 18-20 g.

VOICE: The song is a monotonous repetition that sounds like its name in Spanish, or its English name on Jamaica: "Sweet John Chewit." Audio 2 (M. Oberle). Also has a frequent, scolding note.

HABITAT: Forests, mangroves, and gardens at all elevations.

HABITS: This vireo moves slowly through forest canopy and vine tangles, so is often difficult to locate. It gleans insects off leaves, sometimes hovering to pluck an insect. Insects documented in its diet in Puerto Rico include caterpillars, mantids, walking sticks, grasshoppers, cicadas, weevils, other beetles, bugs, wasps, and ants. It also eats spiders, frogs, and many berries. But over half the food in one study consisted of fruits and berries. The female builds a basket-shaped nest in a forked limb and lays 2-3 white eggs with scattered brown or purple spots. The female does the incubation but both sexes feed the chicks. Often only one chick survives. The vireo can be located in the breeding season by tracking down the begging calls of chicks in May and June.

STATUS AND CONSERVATION: A common summer resident in Puerto Rico. Most birds arrive in February and March and depart for the winter in August. But some birds stay the entire year in Puerto Rico. The restoration of forests in the 20^th Century has probably helped this species.

RANGE: Breeds from the Florida coast south through the Caribbean islands. Winters in the lowlands of Venezuela, the Guianas, eastern Colombia and northwestern Brazil. Found in forests throughout the island; a regular place to find this species is in forest clearings at Maricao State Forest.

TAXONOMY: PASSERIFORMES; VIREONIDAE


Chick - Photo: M. Oberle

References

Arendt, W.J. 1992. Status of North American migrant landbirds in the Caribbean region: a summary. Pp. 143-171 in Ecology and conservation of neotropical migrant landbirds (J.M. Hagan III and D.W. Johnston, eds.) Smithsonian Instit. Press, Washington, D.C.

Bent, A.C. 1950. Life histories of North American wagtails, shrikes, vireos, and their allies. Smithsonian Instit. U.S. National Museum Bull. 197. (Reprinted by Dover Press, NY, 1965).

Bradley, P. and Y. Rey-Millet. 1985. Birds of the Cayman Islands. P.E. Bradley, George Town, Grand Cayman.

Carlo, T. 1999. Alimentación de las aves terrestres de Puerto Rico. El Bien-te-veo 2(2):2.

Carlo, T. A., Collazo, J. A., and M. J. Groom. 2003. Avian fruit preferences across a Puerto Rican forested landscape: pattern consistency and implications for seed removal. Oecologia 134:119-131.

Chace, J. F., B. L. Woodworth, and A. Cruz. 2002. Black-whiskered Vireo (Vireo altiloquus). No. 607 in The Birds of North America (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Cruz, A. 1980. Avian feeding assemblages in Puerto Rico. Carib. J. Sci. 15:21-27.

Cruz, A. 1980. Feeding ecology of the Black-whiskered Vireo and associated gleaning birds in Jamaica. Wilson Bull. 92:40-52.

Cruz, A. 1987. Avian community organization in a mahogany plantation on a Neotropical island. Carib. J. Sci. 23:286-296.

Ehrlich, P.R., D.S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye. 1988. The birderÆs handbook: a field guide to the natural history of North American birds. Simon and Schuster/ Fireside, NY.

Pérez-Rivera, R.A. 1980. Algunas notas sobre migración de aves en Puerto Rico. Science-Ciencia 7(4):123-126.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Princeton.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. Una guía a las aves de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. Publishing Resources, Inc., Santurce, PR.

Raffaele, H.A., J.W. Wiley, O.H. Garrido, A.R. Keith, and J.I. Raffaele. 1998. Guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton.

Recher, H.F. and J. T. Recher. 1966. A contribution to the knowledge of the avifauna of the Sierra de Luquillo, Puerto Rico. Carib. J. Sci. 6:151-161.

Saliva, J.E. 1994. Vieques y su fauna: Vieques wildlife manual. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Boquerón, PR.

Wunderle, J.M., A. Díaz, L. Velasquez, and R. Scharrón. 1987. Forest openings and the distribution of understory birds in a Puerto Rican rainforest. Wilson Bull. 99:22-37.

Black-whiskered Vireo, Spanish text

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