Acadian Flycatcher

The Acadian Flycatcher is one of the more recent additions to the Empidonax genus, a genus that is notorious for having an abundance of similar species within the taxon. They are a lovely olive green and are known for their loud songs that echo throughout the forests. These birds are the only members of their confusing family that nest in the deep south. Their range is varied and stretches all the way to the Great Lakes and southern New England.

About Acadian Flycatchers

These birds have specific habitats of mature forests and a tendency to stay away from human civilizations. As a result, their populations in a forest are an indicator of how healthy the forest is. Habitat loss is a common problem that they face due to deforestation, but their numbers have shown that while their range has changed over the recent years, their numbers have remained more or less stable. Today, we want to be discussing the peculiarities of this otherwise a mistakable bird in exhaustive detail. We will be looking at:

● Acadian Flycatcher Photos, Color Pattern, Song
● Acadian Flycatcher Size, Eating Behavior, Habitat
● Acadian Flycatcher Range and Migration, Nesting

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Acadian Flycatcher Color Pattern

Unlike other members of this genus, Acadian Flycatchers have gray legs and comparatively brighter green upper parts. Their underparts include a pale grayish-white throat, an olive wash across their breast, and a lemon yellow wash on their belly and under tail coverts. This form of their plumage is most noticeable and vivid during the breeding seasons, where their pale underparts bear unusually white undertones. Their wings are dark and have contrasting buffy bars on their wings with pale edges to their tertiary flight feathers. They also have a distinct pale yellowish ring encircling their eye.

During the nonbreeding seasons, the bars on their wings range from a buffy white to a rich buff, with this pattern of plumage most frequently visible before individuals leave breeding grounds. Their throat may also have a pale yellow or greenwash instead of their usual grayish-white sheen. The ring around their eye is not as distinct and may sometimes even not be visible in older birds. Both sexes look alike in plumage and you typically can’t tell them apart from each other. Juveniles generally look similar to the winter plumages of adults but have more buff in their wing bars.

Description and Identification

Their calls are undoubtedly their most distinguishable feature, a sharp and penetrating “peet-sah” that holds an explosive quality. These birds are fairly common in mature deciduous forests but can be difficult to spot as they usually sit in a motionless manner on thin branches in the forest midstory. Once you hear their call, try to trace it back to its point of origin, and hopefully, you can find them. As you keep your eyes fixed in that area, you will inevitably catch the bird swooping down after a prey insect before going back to its perch.

Acadian Flycatcher Song

These birds have a diverse and complex repertoire of vocalizations, including a distinctive territorial song, a complex dawn song, and a distinctive flutter song. They also let out a variety of alarm calls and position calls.

Their most commonly heard call is their territorial song, a loud and explosive “peet-sah” or “flee-sick”. The stress of either syllable varies from region to region, but males across the range begin singing it immediately after arriving on their breeding grounds. They also continue to sing it throughout the breeding season to maintain a hold over their territories.

Their dawn song begins with a similar pattern, a “tee-chup” that begins to include sets of metallic “seet, speet, spake, or speak” notes given out very rapidly. The notes are rapid, with one male giving out 261 notes within a span of 5 minutes. A single male may go on singing for as long as 47 minutes. They also give out an evening song, which occurs in flight. It is a series of “wseet” or “pseet” calls, and then a “wheel chut, queer queep”, along with other notes. If the male is in flight while giving this song, he conducts a sharp downward dive before ending his song with a “wheel chur”.

A vocalization that both males and females sing is a sharp “pwit, pweet, or peet”. These calls are most likely by females. It can be given out very softly or very sharply and explosively, sometimes let out as a single note or other times repeated in a rapid sequence. They both also have other calls that are generally quite soft as they are used when they arrive at the nest with food items for nestlings. A “pee-tul” has often been heard by males carrying food items for the nestlings.

Acadian Flycatcher Size

Acadian Flycatchers are small and long-tailed birds that are about 5.5–5.9 inches long. They are small-bodied but have a distinctly upright posture, with an approximate bodyweight of 0.4–0.5 ounces. Their wings are rather long for a Flycatcher and have a wingspan of 8.7–9.1 inches. These proportions make them larger than Yellow Warblers, but smaller than Great Crested Flycatchers.

Acadian Flycatcher Behavior

These birds make quick and direct flights, taking rapid wingbeats that make them extremely maneuverable through the forest foliage. They may hover like hummingbirds, or even fly backward to and from their perches. Hovering is a fundamental part of their territorial displays, done as they repeatedly give out their flutter calls. Adults may also briefly hover while they arrive at their nests to feed their young. They remain in the mid-level of forests.

Acadian Flycatchers are typically not very aggressive, though they may chase away rival males while establishing their territories during the breeding seasons. These birds are mostly monogamous as well, but rare instances of a male taking on two mates have been observed. In the cases where a male has more than one mate, he feeds the nestlings of all his nests. Their courtship rituals typically occur when the female is engaged in building a nest. It involves the males chasing females or remaining perched nearby while singing and snapping their bills. The males also fly repeated half-circles around perched females or hover near them. Interested females reciprocate by flying towards males, or through gestures like leaning their bodies forward with their tail spread and wings slightly extended.

These birds are mostly solitary, remaining with their mates during all seasons away from the other members of the species. They use the same breeding and wintering sites throughout the year, fluctuating between either location during migration. Their territories generally do not overlap with other males, but they may frequently forage with birds of other species occasionally. Males generally defend the territory, while the females focus mainly on defending the nest and its immediate vicinity.

Acadian Flycatcher Diet

There is a limited amount of data available on the exact diet of these birds, but they mainly feed on insects like other flycatchers. Their insect prey is varied but they mainly feed on bees, wasps, ants, caterpillars, beetles, flies, moths, true bugs, and others. They also eat spiders, millipedes, and some small fruits and berries when insect populations are scarce. They find their prey by scouting the undersides of leaves or by snatching insects from the air.

Acadian Flycatcher Habitat

Acadian Flycatchers mainly inhabit undisturbed mature forests on their breeding and wintering grounds. They use riparian habitats, such as streams, wooded ravines, and river bottoms. As a result, they are particularly sensitive to forest fragmentation and have been moving towards larger woodlots in recent years. They may also occur in understory thickets in both second-growth and primary tropical forests. During migration, they sometimes stop at more open, but still wooded habitats.

Range and Migration

These birds a long distant migrants, breeding in the deciduous forests across the eastern regions of the United States and south-western Ontario. They migrate through eastern Mexico and the Caribbean to southern Central America and the northwest regions of South America in Columbia, western Venezuela, and Ecuador. They can fly over open water, unlike many other Flycatchers, as they regularly migrate north across the Gulf of Mexico during spring. Most migration occurs at night.

Acadian Flycatcher Lifecycle

These birds generally have a single brood in a year, but females in some parts of their range have two broods in a year. Each brood has a clutch size of 2-3 eggs, with females incubating the eggs for 13-15 days. Once the eggs hatch, the chicks emerge in a helpless state while covered with some white down. They are fed by both parents, even if the female begins incubating the second clutch of the season. They are capable of flight 13-15 days after they hatch.

Nesting

Nest sites are selected by the females in a horizontal fork placed near the end of a slightly drooping branch of a small tree or shrub, ranging from around 4-50 feet above the ground. Females alone undertake the construction of the nest, making small hammocks that are primarily made of spiderwebs or cocoon silk interwoven with fine strips of bark, twigs, weed stems, grass, and other plant fibers. This hammock is sometimes lined with finer materials like rootlets and plant down. The webs stolen from spiders and caterpillars hold the nest together and can be stretched for the nestling period as the chicks grow. These nest structures have trailing strands of weeds or other materials hanging below, often giving it a sloppy or abandoned appearance.

Anatomy of an Acadian Flycatcher

Acadian Flycatchers are small and long-tailed birds that are about 5.5–5.9 inches long. They are small-bodied but have a distinctly upright posture, with an approximate bodyweight of 0.4–0.5 ounces. Their wings are rather long for a flycatcher and have a wingspan of 8.7–9.1 inches. These proportions make them larger than Yellow Warblers, but smaller than Great Crested Flycatchers.

Final Thoughts

Acadian Flycatchers are endlessly fascinating. They are such adept fliers that they sometimes take a bath not by wading into the water, but by diving at it. They hit the surface of the water with their chest, and then return to their perch to preen and shake. Their populations have remained more or less stable since the late 1960s, as land managers consider them to be a species of high priority. This is due to the fact that their populations are an indicator of the overall health of a forest.

Their biggest threats are habitat loss, fragmentation of deciduous forests, and depredation from other species. Increased rates of brood parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds have also threatened their numbers. As a result of these combined factors, nesting attempts fail 50–70% of the time during breeding reasons. Due to strong conservation efforts, their numbers have managed to remain stable. These Flycatchers are often mistaken as another member of their species but are unique in their own rights. While similar appearances can gloss over the multitudes of differences that they hold in comparison to their cousins, their explosive calls and their curious flights make them stand out among many Flycatchers.

Ornithology

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Bird Watching Binoculars for IdentifyingAcadian Flycatchers

The most common types of bird watching binoculars for viewing Acadian Flycatchers are 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. Bird Watching Academy & Camp sells really nice 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. You can view and purchase them here.

Acadian Flycatcher Stickers

Stickers are a great way for you to display your love for bird watching and the Acadian Flycatcher. We sell a monthly subscription sticker pack. The sticker packs have 12 bird stickers. These sticker packs will help your kids learn new birds every month.

Bird Feeders ForAcadian Flycatchers

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Bird Houses ForAcadian Flycatchers

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