Dan's Feathursday Feature: Red-eyed Vireo

To this native Midwesterner, nothing beats a maple/beech forest in spring. Walking the edge of a freshly harrowed field in late May, I see a deer trail leading into the dense woods, and I am pulled in. I duck under a few low-hanging limbs, and when I straighten up again I find myself in a different world. Like shutting the door on a luxury sedan, the noises of the outside world are muted, and I am swimming in a silent sea of soft greens and yellows. The leaves don’t rustle as I walk, like they do in the fall. I enter this quiet world quietly.

Around me are massive trunks, of trees who bided their time in climate-induced quarantine for five long months—still and patient on the outside, but beneath the surface flowing with the lifeblood of spring. As March turned to April, and April to May, their buds swelled and groaned, longing to burst out of confinement, but fearing to do so until the proper time. That time has come. The stay-at-home order has been lifted, and every tree and bush has burst forth with fresh leaves—soft, green and tender. The trees were forced to hold their breath for so long. Now I think I hear them breathing.

This forest slows me down. I listen. I touch. I notice. A tiny inchworm stretches upward from a leaf, imitating a stem, I suppose. A droplet from last night’s rain falls from the upper canopy and startles a leaf in front of me. It startles me, too, surprised at how loud a drop of water sounds when the heart is still.

As my eyes and ears adjust, I realize I share this space with at least two birds. One a Wood Thrush. I don’t see it, but its eerie song rings clean and clear in the perfect acoustics of the dense leaves.

The other a Red-eyed Vireo. It was this vireo that had shaken loose that noisy drop of water earlier. The bird descends from the upper canopy, flitting downward like an unmoored leaf that can’t decide which tree it belongs to. It pauses, cocks its head, and then snatches an insect from the underside of a leaf. Up-down-left-right it flits. It’s the only non-green thing in sight, but I am amazed at how difficult it is to keep my eye on it.

As someone who delights in creating portraits of birds in action, nothing is closer to perfection than the soft light of this beech/maple forest. No burned whites. No over-sharp contrast. No annoying shadows. And vireos tend to spend most of their time in the upper canopy, so I am happy at the chance for some eye-level shots. But the darn bird won’t sit still long enough to get a bead on it. Then I remember the inchworm, and I train my lens on it. The worm is right out in the open. No self-respecting Red-eyed Vireo would miss such an easy breakfast. Could I be lucky enough to capture the bird just as it snatches the inchworm?

No. I blink, the worm is gone, and the Red-eyed Vireo is perched two branches away with a contented grin. At least it gives me a chance to get a few shots before it bounds off after other bugs. I never find the bird again, but I hear it overhead, singing incessantly as it forages in the verdant green.

As the unseen sun rises higher, so does the temperature. As if to remind me not to get overly sentimental about Mother Nature, a swarm of freshly hatched mosquitoes and other tiny carnivores finds me and disturbs my peaceful reverie. They drive me toward the forest edge and back into the sunny field, where a mild breeze liberates me from the marauding hoards. The Red-eyed Vireo still sings as I slide back into the real world where, though our quarantine has not yet been lifted, my heart certainly has.

Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights and pictures of Chicago birder, Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.