This
is truly a rare visitor from the Bahamas - the ABA checklist Sixth
Edition (2002) published only five confirmed records. The bird
conveniently favored several oak trees situated in a small traffic
island in the parking lot of the nature center. The internet had us
primed for this one, and it was our first stop on a short, six day tour
of Southern Florida. Although we had to wait for a couple of hours, the
bird eventually showed very well and all of these images were taken
without any optical aids, just a Nikon Coolpix 995!
Overall it was quite similar to White-eyed Vireo but much duller,
lacking the brighter green and yellow tones of that species. The
iris was dark, and the broken white eye-ring was quite obvious. I found
the song very similar to White-eyed and don’t have enough experience to
distinguish them on vocals alone. However, it sang frequently which was
a great way of tracking it through the thickly foliated oak trees. It
was a most exciting start to our trip.
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