April 27 2019. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton, ON. Regular readers will know I have a weakness for vireos; to me they’re birds with attitude. We see five vireo species around here, three stay all summer the other two head a bit further north to breed. After a seven-month vireo-drought, their reappearance is always something to celebrate. The first to return is usually the Blue-headed Vireo, it’s a prize, and I saw my first-of-the-year today.
Before our encounter with the vireo, my companion and I had completed one of our regular transects. The temperature barely climbed above late March conditions all day and, if anything good that came of it, it was that birds were forced down from treetops to find shelter and food. We spotted two Blue-gray Gnatcatchers in a calm pocket of woodland, sheltered from a cold, howling westerly wind; they could have been My Birds of the Day had it not been for the vireo later on. The gnatcatchers distracted us from studying a couple of low, singing Pine Warblers who were unusual because it’s a species that hangs around and breeds in the upper reaches of pines and is far more often heard than seen. Around us a House Wren sang and a few Yellow-rumped Warblers, the first of thousands to come, kept company with Ruby-crowned Kinglets. It was all very entertaining – if cold.
The vireo came at a second stop when we joined a friend who was leading a beginner birding group. They were in another sheltered valley and had already seen all but one of possible woodpecker species. As we arrived to join them I heard the characteristic heart-lifting, three or four-syllable song of a vireo and knew it almost right away as the Blue-headed Vireo. Our Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, who would otherwise have been Birds of the Day had to step aside.