Bell's Vireo

A small, plain-plumaged bird best located by its scratchy, insistent song, it favors dense shrubby thickets along washes and river bottoms in the southwestern and central United States and into Mexico. It stays low and skulks in tangled willow or mesquite rather than perching in the open. Late spring through summer, listening for the persistent song from within thick low cover, is far more productive than trying to spot the bird visually.