The San Andres Vireo or St. Andrew Vireo (Vireo caribaeus) is a threatened species

Threatened species

Threatened species are any speciesg animals, plants, fungi, etc.) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.The World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories,...

 of vireo

Vireo

The vireos are a group of small to medium-sized passerine birds restricted to the New World. They are typically dull-plumaged and greenish in color, the smaller species resembling wood warblers apart from their heavier bills...

 endemic to the Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

n island of St. Andrew

San Andrés (island)

San Andrés is a coral island among the Colombian islands in the Caribbean Sea; it is the largest island of the southern group of islands. Together with the nearby island of Providencia and some smaller islands of the southern group of the Colombian archipelago, San Andrés forms the department of...

 in the Caribbean Sea, located off the east coast of Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

. Due to habitat loss from the ever expanding population on this small island, the species has now become limited to a few localities on the southern half of the island, but it is still common in some of these areas. It is found in most habitat types on the island.

Description

It is a small bird, 12.5 cm in length. It is olive-green above and whitish or pale yellow below. It has two white bars on the wing, pale edges to the flight-feathers and a pale yellow stripe between the bill and eye. The eye is grey-brown. It has several songs and calls, producing a one-syllable chattering, a repeated two-syllable song and a three-syllable song.

It is very similar to the Mangrove Vireo

Mangrove Vireo

The Mangrove Vireo is a species of bird in the Vireonidae family.It is found in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua....

 (V. pallens) and Jamaican Vireo

Jamaican Vireo

The Jamaican Vireo is a species of bird in the Vireonidae family. It is endemic to Jamaica. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, and heavily degraded former forest.-References:*...

 (V. modestus). It has a slightly thinner and darker bill than the Mangrove Vireo. Its bill is slightly longer and darker than that of the Jamaican Vireo which also differs in having a whitish eye and fainter stripe between the bill and eye.

Distribution and habitat

It is restricted to the island of St. Andrew (or San Andrés) in the south-west Caribbean which belongs to Colombia but is closer to Nicaragua. It occurs in a variety of habitats including woodland, cocoa plantations, scrubby pastures and mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

 swamps. It prefers vegetation with a dense understorey. It is most common in the less urbanized south of the island. The population has been estimated at between 8,200 and 14,000 individuals.

The bird has a very small range and may be vulnerable to the effects of hurricanes. It is threatened by habitat loss as the island's population increases. However, it is tolerant of habitat degradation and is still one of the island's commonest birds. It is classified as Vulnerable

Vulnerable species

On 30 January 2010, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species identified 9694 Vulnerable species, subspecies and varieties, stocks and sub-populations.-References:...

 by BirdLife International

BirdLife International

BirdLife International is a global Partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources...

.

Behaviour

It feeds by gleaning

Gleaning (birds)

Gleaning is a term for a feeding strategy by birds in which they catch invertebrate prey, mainly arthropods, by plucking them from foliage or the ground, from crevices such as rock faces and under the eaves of houses, or even, as in the case of ticks and lice, from living animals. This behavior is...

 caterpillars and other arthropod

Arthropod

An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton , a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods are members of the phylum Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others...

s from vegetation. The breeding territory covers about 0.5 hectares and nesting has been recorded in June. The nest

Bird nest

A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American Robin or Eurasian Blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the...

is built on or hanging from a branch in bushes or mangroves. Two lightly spotted eggs are laid.