Voice of the Wild

This is Illinois Extension’s Voice of the Wild. Our birdsong will start in five seconds, so find someplace quiet, take a deep breath, and enjoy.

A key member of the summer orchestra, you’ll hear this common gray and olive bird on nearly every hike. It sings throughout the day, every day, seemingly every minute. Uttering short little phrases one after another as if it's just letting us know that it’s up there. It tends to slink about in the upper canopy inspecting the underside of leaves for caterpillars and other arthropods. Despite its name, its red iris is not always easy to see; look instead for its dark eyeline and pale eyebrow. This is the red-eyed vireo, Vireo olivaceus from the family Vireonidae. Here’s the red-eye’s voice again.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab of Ornithology for our bird sounds. And thank you for tuning in to learn a new bird call with Illinois Extension.