Jamaican Vireo

About the Jamaican Vireo

The Jamaican vireo (Vireo modestus) is a species of bird in the family Vireonidae, the vireos, greenlets, and shrike-babblers. It is endemic to Jamaica. The Jamaican vireo was originally described in 1861 as Vireo modestus, its current binomial. It is monotypic.

The Jamaican vireo is about 12.5 cm (4.9 in) long and weighs about 9 to 10 g (0.32 to 0.35 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a mostly greenish olive to grayish olive head with yellowish olive gray above the lores and on the chin and throat. Their upperparts are greenish olive to grayish olive with a slightly brighter rump. Their wing coverts are brownish gray with wide yellowish white tips that form two wing bars. Their primaries and secondaries are dusky to grayish with paler olive green outer edges and whitish inner edges. Their breast is yellowish gray, their belly brighter yellow gray, and their sides and flanks pale greenish olive. They have a gray iris, a gray maxilla, a lighter, sometimes pinkish, mandible, and grayish blue legs and feet. Juveniles have grayer heads and more brownish olive upperparts than adults, with buffier yellow underparts. Wikipedia →