Featured image credit: “Red-eyed Vireo” by ChampOfSomething is licensed under CC BY 2.0
To hear songs, learn identification information, migratory patterns, and some fun facts, check out the Eastern Towhee page offered by one of my favorite resources: the Cornell Lab of Ornithology »
To give you an example of their tireless singing, which might take the prize over the Mockingbird (and THEY can be pretty tireless….) I quote the below from allaboutbirds.org:
“Some find the Red-eyed Vireo’s song unending and monotonous. Bradford Torrey wrote in 1889, “I have always thought that whoever dubbed this vireo the ‘preacher’ could have had no very exalted opinion of the clergy.” But each male sings 30 or more different songs, and neighbors have unique repertoires. Over 12,500 different Red-eyed Vireo song types have been recorded.
“On May 27, 1952, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence counted the number of songs sung by a single Red-eyed Vireo seeking a mate on his territory 180 miles north of Toronto. He sang 22,197 songs in the 14 hours from just before dawn to evening, singing for 10 of those hours.”
