The Warbling Vireo is one of the plainest songbirds in Michigan — grayish-olive above, dull white below, with only a faint pale eyebrow and no wing bars or bold markings to speak of. Yet it makes up for its drab looks with a bright, rolling, warbled song that tumbles down the scale and often ends on an upward note, memorably paraphrased as "if I sees you, I will seize you, and I'll squeeze you till you squirt." Once you know that cheerful jumble, the bird is easy to find.
It favors tall deciduous shade trees, especially along rivers, lakeshores, and in leafy parks and neighborhoods, where it forages high in the foliage for caterpillars. Michigan hosts breeding Warbling Vireos from May through August. Because it is so nondescript, most birders identify it by song rather than sight, learning to pick its liquid warble out of the summer canopy.
Gleans caterpillars, beetles, and other insects from the leaves of tall deciduous trees, moving deliberately through the canopy. It adds berries and small fruit in late summer and fall as it prepares for migration to Mexico and Central America.
By its song. The Warbling Vireo has almost no distinctive markings, but its bright, rolling, warbled phrase that rises at the end is unmistakable. Sight identification relies on the plain face with a pale eyebrow and no wing bars.
In tall deciduous shade trees, especially along rivers, lakeshores, and in mature parks and residential neighborhoods with big cottonwoods, maples, and willows.
The Warbling Vireo is plainer, with a soft face pattern and no dark eye-line or gray cap, and its song is a continuous rolling warble rather than the Red-eyed's short, repeated phrases.
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