Black Phoebe

Black Phoebe

Black Phoebe: Medium flycatcher, mostly black body and white belly. Outer tail feathers and undertail coverts are white. Bill, legs, feet are black. Feeds primarily on insects, sometimes small fish. Weak fluttering bouyant flight with shallow wing beats. Sallies from perch to catch insects in air.

● Song: Common call is a sharp seek!

● Foraging & Feeding: Black Phoebe: Hunts for food from a low, shaded perch where it watches for insects and swoops down to catch them in mid-air. Occasionally snatches food from the water's surface, ground, or vegetation; also eats small fish caught at the water's surface. Coughs up indigestible insect parts in the form of pellets.

● Breeding & nesting: Black Phoebe: Three to six white eggs, sometimes with red brown spots, are laid in a mud, moss, and grass nest lined with soft material, often feathers or cow hair, and built under a bridge, on a sheltered ledge, in a crevice, in an old building, or in hanging roots near the top of an embankment close to water. Incubation ranges from 15 to 17 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Black Phoebe: Eastern Phoebe has olive-gray sides and breast; gray-brown upperparts, and white underparts. Eastern Kingbird is larger, has black head, gray-black upperparts, and white underparts.

Flight Pattern