First Red-eyed Vireo of this migration

The Red-eyed Vireo (Vireo olivaceus) is very well-known to North American birders. Here it is a passage migrant, on its way to Western Amazonia, and today the first one of the season was picking through a zorrillo tree along our driveway. It was a clean-cut adult, with no traces of yellow below, making it easy to distinguish from the  Yellow-green Vireo (Vireo flavoviridis), which nests in our garden each year, departing, also for the western Amazon basin, in October.

The bird in the photo below, taken in 2010, made a full recovery after hitting our window. It is an immature and thus has a brown, not red, iris and lots of yellow on the flanks, making it harder to distinguish from flavoviridis.

Red-eyed Vireo recovering from a brush with our window

Red-eyed Vireo recovering from a brush with our window

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