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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


California Nature: Flycatchers


Tyrant flycatchers are Passerine birds which occur throughout North and South America. They superficially resemble the Old World flycatchers, but are more robust with stronger bills. They do not have the sophisticated vocal capabilities of the songbirds. Most, but not all, are rather plain. As the name implies, most are insectivorous. There are 429 species world wide (all in America), 45 North American species, and 31 Californian species. Flycatcher songs are innate, not learned like those of most songbirds. A group of flycatchers has many collective nouns, including an "outfield", "swatting", "zapper", and "zipper" of flycatchers.

The Olive-sided Flycatcher, Contopus cooperi, is a passerine bird. It is a medium-sized tyrant flycatcher. Often found perched on top of a large tree or snag, Olive-sided Flycatchers are an easily recognized breeder of North America’s coniferous forests. They perform one of the longest migrations of the Nearctic migrants, and are typically known as late arrivals in the spring and early migrants in the fall. Olive-sided Flycatchers, both male and females, are stout, block-headed, short-tailed birds with a large bill. The back is olive-gray-brown, with similar colored streaked sides. These colored sides, along with dull white stretching from the throat down to the belly, give the appearance of an “unbuttoned vest” on the underside.
Yellow bellied flycatchers are some of the easiest birds to recognize Yellow-bellied Flycatchers wait on a perch low or in the middle of a tree and fly out to catch insects in flight, sometimes hovering over foliage. They sometimes eat berries or seeds.

The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is one of the continent’s most overlooked birds and one of the last ones discovered here. Early ornithologists often confused other species with this one, so historical accounts of the species are often misleading.

Notoriously reclusive, this little flycatcher is more often heard than seen, although its soft voice is easily confused with other species. To make observation even more difficult, it does not linger long on its breeding grounds; its summer stay is one of the shortest of the Neotropical birds that visit the northern part of the continent for nesting, often less than 70 days. The nest of this species is well camouflaged and devilishly difficult to find.

The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher winters in semi-open habitats of Central America, including coffee plantations. Shade-grown coffee plantations have higher densities of Yellow-bellied Flycatchers than sun-grown coffee plantations.
The Alder Flycatcher is a small insect-eating bird of the tyrant flycatcher family. Adults have olive-brown upperparts, browner on the wings and tail, with whitish underparts; they have a white eye ring, white wing bars, a small bill and a short tail. The breast is washed with olive-grey. The upper part of the bill is grey; the lower part is orangish.

At one time, the Alder Flycatcher was included with the very similar Willow Flycatcher in a single species, "Traill's Flycatcher". Their breeding habitat is deciduous thickets, often alders or willows, near water across Canada, Alaska and the northeastern United States. They make a cup nest low in a vertical fork in a shrub.

The Alder Flycatcher migrate to South America, usually selecting winter habitat near water. They wait on a perch near the top of a shrub and fly out to catch insects in flight, also sometimes picking insects from foliage while hovering. They may eat some berries and seeds. This bird's song is a wheezed wee-bee. The call is a quick preet.
The willow flycatcher is an endangered bird in California A small drab flycatcher of wet, brushy areas, the Willow Flycatcher is best identified by its voice. Nearly identical to the Alder Flycatcher; the two species were considered the same until the 1970s.

Historically, Willow Flycatchers nested throughout California wherever riparian deciduous shrubs, mainly thickets of willows, occurred. Altitudes of known nestings occurred from within 100 feet of sea level to 8,000 feet, though Willow Flycatchers habitat is most common at lower elevations range in the Sierra Nevada. The historic breeding distribution of Willow Flycatchers in California probably included representatives of three subspecies.

If a Brown-headed Cowbird lays its eggs in the nest of a Willow Flycatcher, the flycatcher may bury the cowbird eggs in the nest lining, or even build a completely new nest over the top of the first one.

Male Willow Flycatchers establish territory boundaries prior to pair formation and maintain them early in the season by singing from elevated perches. Territorial overlap between adjacent males is minimal. Willow Flycatchers conduct most of their foraging and other activities within their territories
The Cordilleran Flycatcher waits on an open perch of a shrub or low branch of a tree and flies out to catch insects in flight (hawking), and also sometimes picks insects from foliage while hovering.  Found mostly east of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges, the Cordilleran Flycatcher is a common small yellowish flycatcher of shaded forests.

Nearly identical in appearance to the Pacific-slope Flycatcher, the two forms were formerly considered to be the same species, known as the "Western Flycatcher." The Cordilleran and Pacific-slope flycatchers can be distinguished only by very slight differences in body and feather measurements and by voice. Even voice is difficult, with only the position notes of the males differing, and those differences being best detected by viewing a spectrogram.

The Cordilleran Flycatcher is native to the nations of North America. It prefers temperate, subtropical, or tropical forest ecosystems whether dry or moist. This bird has an estimated global population of 2,600,000 individuals.
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