Bell’s Vireo

The cute little bird, Bell’s Vireo, is very common at our farm. I hear their song in several locations around the property.

They spend their time in the underbrush and wild raspberry bramble, and they are small, so I rarely get to see them.

A week or so ago, I recorded a very uncommon species (Chuck will’s-widow), so I decided to upload my list of bird species to my EBird list. I don’t do that routinely – not because I lack commitment to the cause, but because I choose to use my time in other ways – especially since the list of birds I typically see isn’t terribly uncommon for this location. I added all the species I had heard and seen. When I input Bell’s Vireo, a window popped up suggesting that this species is fairly uncommon for my area and questioned whether was I certain that is the species I had heard. I replied that, yes, I was certain that I heard the birds, and that Merlin had also recorded those data.

A few days ago, I was sitting near Bird house “F” which is one of the houses we produced this Spring, and which I decided to paint PINK! Earlier this year a Bluebird pair fledged a brood of chicks from this box.

This is the female incubating on 4/12/26 in house “F”

Here are the chicks on 4/22/26.

I didn’t capture photos of this pair feeding their chicks due to time constraints (gosh, if I just didn’t have to work to support my nature hobbies!)

The house sat empty for a couple of weeks. Then, I observed this male Bluebird sitting atop the house on Thursday, 6/4/26.

I can’t say if this is the male of the same pair that fledged chicks back in April- early May. But, this male’s behavior suggest to me that he’s staking out the territory awaiting his mate to decide whether she wants to set up shop here, again.

Back to the true subject of this post – Bell’s Vireo:

Fortunately for me, as I sat watching this lovely E. Bluebird, I saw a tiny bit of movement in the scrubby brush about 50 feet from where this PINK! house is located.

While watching the Bluebird, I had been hearing Bell’s Vireo singing, but from that distance I wasn’t able to determine what little bird I might capture with my lens.

I’m happy to report that I was able to get these few shots of a Bell’s Vireo – which I promptly uploaded to my EBird account… I suppose because I had been electronically questioned whether I thought I had accurately defined the species in my last upload!