Overview

Pacific-slope Flycatcher: Small flycatcher, olive-brown upperparts, yellow throat and belly, olive-gray breast. Eye-ring is white and elongated. Wings are dark with two pale bars. Bill is long with dark upper mandible and bright yellow lower mandible. Weak fluttering flight on shallow wing beats.

Range and Habitat

Pacific-slope Flycatcher: Breeds from Alaska south along the coast to Baja California. Spends winters south of the U.S.-Mexico border. Preferred habitats include moist, shaded coniferous or mixed forests.

Breeding and Nesting

Pacific-slope Flycatcher: Three to five white eggs with brown blotches near large end are laid in a moss-lined cup nest made of small twigs and rootlets, usually built against a tree trunk where the bark has split, in roots of a wind-felled tree, in a bank, or under the eave of a forest cabin. Incubation ranges from 14 to 15 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Pacific-slope Flycatcher: Hawks flying insects or gleans them from foliage; also eats berries and seeds.

Readily Eats

Meal Worms

Vocalization

Pacific-slope Flycatcher: Song is a rising "pseet-ptsick-seet." First part alone is often used as a call, or is repeated on a drawn-out, almost sibilant high pitch; second part is rapid and louder.

Similar Species

Pacific-slope Flycatcher: Cordilleran Flycatcher has a two-syllable call (as opposed to an up-slurred single note). Yellow-bellied Flycatcher has a shorter tail and stronger green tones.