Great Crested Flycatcher

With distinctive and high-pitched whistles piercing through the Eastern woodlands of North America, the Great Crested Flycatcher is an elegant bird with distinct lemon-yellow bellies. They are secretive and can be rather elusive, but attentive birdwatchers may be rewarded with a flash of reddish-brown and yellow if they closely trace their harsh calls back to their sources.

Hammond’s Flycatcher

A small, olive-green bird with distinctive facial markings and a stout and round body, the Hammond’s Flycatcher is a mature bird and old-growth coniferous forests of western North America. Males sing a very short, 3-parted song that can help distinguish this species from other similar Empidonax Flycatchers, including the Dusky Flycatcher, which can occur in shrubby habitats adjacent to Hammond’s. Compared to other Empidonax, Hammond’s Flycatchers have a fairly small, dark bill and long wings. In their breeding habitat, Hammond’s Flycatchers often forages and nests rather high in trees.

Gray Flycatcher

Unassuming and inconspicuous, the Gray Flycatcher is yet another member of the notoriously difficult to identity Empidonax genus. They have a much broader range than some other members of the species. They breed throughout the western portions of the United States and wintering throughout most of Mexico. Gray Flycatchers range from the high deserts of the Great Basin to the sagebrush country and the open wood of juniper and pinyon. They are common winter in the mesquite thickets and streamside groves of southern Arizona.

Cordilleran Flycatcher

Among the similar-looking Empidonax Flycatchers, the two most difficult to tell the Cordilleran Flycatcher and the Pacific-slope Flycatcher apart. You can usually recognize a male by their calls, but you can hardly ever identify females can at all except by their ranges in summer. They were a single species until the late 1980s, where both were put under the name of Western Flycatchers.

Dusky Flycatcher

In the mountains and foothills of western North America, the Dusky Flycatcher is an unobtrusive little songbird of open coniferous woodlands, aspen groves, chaparral, and scrubby or streamside thickets. Olive-gray above, with a bold eyering and two wing bars, Dusky Flycatchers wear the classic markings of an Empidonax Flycatcher and can be hard to distinguish from other species. Dusky Flycatchers forage for flying insects but stay fairly low within the vegetation, frequently giving a brief and crisp wit call.

Brown-crested Flycatcher

Of the three similar crested Flycatchers in the west, these birds are the largest. They are a common summer resident in the southwest, mainly in southern Texas and Arizona. The Brown-crested Flycatcher is conspicuous and aggressive in the nesting season. They arrive late in spring, after most other hole-nesting birds, and may have to compete for nest sites. Typically, they feed on large insects like beetles or cicadas, but they also have been seen catching Hummingbirds on occasion.

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.

Willow Flycatcher

The Willow Flycatcher is a widespread migratory bird that mostly breed in a variety of wet habitats. These habitats are mostly shrubby. Their range can extend from Maine to British Columbia, and southwards to southern California. They inhabit similar habitats in their overwintering range. Until 1973, this species was considering conspecific to Alder
Flycatchers and both species were called Traill’s Flycatchers.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher

The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is a little bird that lives in the northern Evergreen forests, far away from human settlements.

Pacific-slope Flycatcher

The Pacific-slope Flycatcher are small and attractive birds native to western North America, the Pacific Region. These insectivorous birds belong to the family Tyrannidae. They are soft greenish brown birds, with bold eye rings that make them look rather cute. Pacific-scope Flycatchers look very similar to other species in the genus, Empidonax.

Least Flycatcher

The Least Flycatcher (Empidonax minimus) is a small insect-eating bird. It is the smallest Empidonax Flycatcher in eastern North America. It is also sometimes called “chebec” or “chebecker”, after the sound it makes. This bird’s name is a dead giveaway of its characteristics, namely its diet and song. The closest relative to the Least Flycatcher was thought to be the Hammond’s Flycatcher based on similarities in their songs and appearances. However, mitochondrial DNA analysis has revealed that the Least Flycatcher does not possess any sister species, making it a one-of-a-kind species.

Olive-sided Flycatcher

The Olive-sided Flycatcher is a songbird that you can find whistling throughout the coniferous mountain forests of North America. Their whistles are markedly distinct, and they are rather aggressive when there are intruders in their breeding territories. You can frequently find them in burned forests, with many dead trees hosting their populations as they provide perches and sufficient prey.

Cassin’s Kingbird

The Cassin’s Kingbird is an extremely fascinating creature. One of the most unique features they show is their ability to communicate vocally in situations with little to no visibility. Being extremely vocal birds, they have several different vocalizations that they use for specialized purposes.

Western Wood-Pewee

Found breeding throughout the western half of much of the United States, the Western Wood-Pewee is a Flycatcher that is known for its “sit-and-wait” tactics during hunting. They use exposed branches as a perch to observe from and may return multiple times to the same perch in order to track their prey further before striking at them with marvelous precision. The western half of North America comes alive during the summers. Very little is known about these birds and their wintering habits as they travel long distances back to South America.

Vermilion Flycatcher

The Vermilion Flycatcher is a small songbird, with a distinctive vermilion-red coloration that sets them apart from the otherwise dull members of the Tyrannidae family. You can find them in the southern regions of North America and in South America, near rivers, streams, and open or semi-open environments like bushy grasslands. They are a common breeder in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as in Argentina and Uruguay.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

A member of the Tyrannus family, the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is a long-tailed kingbird. As elegant residents of the southern United States, you can see them along roads and in small towns. Beloved by bird watchers across the South it has been named the state bird of Oklahoma, the Texas Bird of Paradise, and due to its long tail, it’s also known as the Swallow-tailed Flycatcher.

Ash-throated Flycatcher

The Ash-throated Flycatcher is a very versatile bird with the ability to survive in almost any climate. Due to water intake requirements being minimum to none along with them needing a relatively small area to nest, it is rather easy for them to survive in harsh desert climates.

Eastern Wood-Pewee

The Eastern Wood-Pewee is a small Flycatcher best known for its distinctive songs. Pee-ah-wee. This song has earned them their name. This song is a common occurrence in the wooded habitats of the Eastern U.S. and southern Canada in the summer months. For quite a long time, this species has been very difficult to study, because their nests aren’t easy to find. They look like a knot on a branch. As a result of these inaccessible nests, researchers have just recently been able to study the reproductive biology of this species.

Western Kingbird

The Western Kingbird

A Western Kingbird is a fun bird to see while bird watching. Below are some tips to help you identify Western Kingbirds. We have also put together a list of fun Western Kingbird t-shirts, Western Kingbird bird patches, birdhouses, bird feeders, binoculars, stickers, and other fun bird-watching items.

Eastern Kingbird

The Eastern Kingbird

An Eastern Kingbird is a fun bird to see while bird watching. Below are some tips to help you identify Eastern Kingbirds. We have also put together a list of fun Eastern Kingbird t-shirts, Eastern Kingbird bird patches, bird houses, bird feeders, binoculars, stickers and other fun bird watching items.