Hi John, Lynn's response is in line with my nest monitoring experience with vireos. To add a little depth to the topic, male Bell's, Warbling and Hutton's vireos also all sing from the nest, which makes nest finding for these species easier than most. Females often make a scolding call when they've just swapped places with the male and he's begun singing from the nest. Anthropomorphize that as you like... These are just the species I have personal experience with, so I would guess that this behavior is also present in other vireo species.
Greg Levandoski Bellvue, CO On Thursday, May 28, 2020 at 6:48:30 AM UTC-6, lynn wickersham wrote: > > We have studied Gray Vireos for over 10 years and have monitored hundreds > of nests. We frequently find nests with sitting, singing males but have > never observed females singing on nests. While females do sometimes sing a > few notes, as we've observed it this behavior generally seems to occur also > when their mates are singing, as sort of a courtship ritual and/or contact > call. Sometimes they sing some notes and also squeaky calls and their > distinctive trill prior to copulation. When they do sing, it is usually a > few notes at a time, noticeably different than the males, with softer, > shorter notes, and not nearly as extensive or melodic as the males. > > Lynn Wickersham > Durango > > On Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 4:54:10 PM UTC-6, John D wrote: >> >> CO Birders : >> >> While visiting my son in New Castle this past weekend , I took the >> opportunity to do an early morning visit to Cameo and Coal Canyon in Mesa >> county before it got too hot and the motor bikes and ATV's started up. >> >> I did get to see and photograph Chukar my target bird , male and female , >> they seem to have moved much further up Coal Canyon than previous years , >> probably because of the active shooting range in the lower part of the >> Canyon. >> >> And I did find a Gray Vireo nest in juniper in Coal Canyon , took me over >> half an hour to find it , could hear the bird singing but just could not >> see it despite being only 6 feet from the sound . So eventually I found the >> nest and the bill of the vireo just poking above the rim of the nest . My >> question is what sex was this bird , can both male and female vireos sing >> the same song from the nest ?. It was singing the same song as on Sibley. >> >> [image: IMG_3809.1jpg.jpg] >> >> John Drummond >> >> Colorado Springs >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/760bfdcf-6a58-4ff0-b5dc-efc537605f30%40googlegroups.com.
