Hutton's Vireo

Photo credit: Becky Matsubara, FLICKR Commons

The Hutton's Vireo, Vireo huttoni!

Here's a bird that I know is special, but I wasn't sure all the reasons why.

Some reasons off the cuff of why I think it's special:

it seems feisty and hardy
it's funny that it looks like a chunkier Ruby-crowned Kinglet without the crown and blue-grey legs instead of black ones with yellowish feet
I love hearing it's song which sounds like its 4-letter code HUVI (hu-veee! hu-veee!)

I also know that it's an insectivore and it mostly likes to hang out in trees. That's about it.

Let's learn more!

Hutton's Vireo at Agua Caliente Trail. Ed Levin County Park, Milpitas, CA. Credit: Julio Mulero, FLICKR Commons.

Range

Upon checking out Cornell's All About Birds page I immediately learned that it is a year-round resident in all of it's range. Looks like this is rare among vireos. One part of their range stretches along the coast from Northern Baja to Southern B.C. and also includes a strip up the Sierras in CA. The other part goes from Southeast Arizona throughout most of interior Mexico and into Central America.

More Questions Now:

Hmmm, what are the differences in those two populations? How many distinct communities of Hutton's Vireos are there? Is there a common habitat preference? Do they migrate regionally or elevationally (this is my site, i can make up words if I want to)? Let's find out!

Range map provided by Birds of the World

Check out another interesting map on Audubon's site that shows range shifts under different future temperature increases.

Hutton's Vireo Sub-populations

Ah ha!

"The range of the Hutton's Vireo is broken up into distinct areas separated by wide desert. Across these areas, up to 12 subspecies have been described, varying in size and plumage. " - Cornell's All About Birds page

More Research on Sub-populations:

Looks like the two distinct groups -- Pacific and Interior -- have been separate for a long ass time!
- - Cicero, Carla & Johnson, Ned. (1992). Genetic Differentiation between Populations of Hutton's Vireo (Aves: Vireonidae) in Disjunct Allopatry. The Southwestern Naturalist. 37. 344. 10.2307/3671784.
There are 7 sub-population in the Pacific Group and 5 in the Interior Group (Source: Birds of the World*)
The sub-population that lives around Petaluma is Vireo huttoni parkesi. It can be found coastally from Arcata to San Francisco. Definitely my kind of subspecies! It's coloration is different than other subspecies in that it has a brighter more yellowish tinge to it's back and under feathers... like California sunshine... although I guess that makes more sense if it was Southern CA.
- - Reference: Phillips, A. R. (1991). The known birds of North and Middle America, Part II: Bombycillidae; Sylviidae to Sturnidae; Vireonidae. A. R. Phillips, Denver, CO, USA.

Cool Nesting Stuff

What?? Both males and females incubate eggs and feed young! How progressive of them. It's rare for male song birds to share incubation duties. I wonder if this is more common among year-round-resident birds... It's pretty cool how they build a moss and lichen-covered hammock cup nest.

photo credit: Mark Ahlness, FLICKR Creative Commons

Who in hog heaven was Hutton?

"At the persistent request of colleague Spencer F. Baird, John Cassin reluctantly named this species after William Hutton, a young naturalist whom he did not know but who collected the type specimens in 1847 in Monterey, California. "

-Reference: Mearns, B. C., and R. F. Mearns (1992). Audubon to Xántus: The lives of those commemorated in North American bird names. Academic Press, New York, NY, USA

Bonus Material

"Eye-ringed Leaf Gleaners" 1984 Focus Article by Rich Stallcup

References
Davis, J. N. (2020). Hutton's Vireo (Vireo huttoni), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.hutvir.01
Information from the All About Birds website, www.allaboutbirds.org, © Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

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