Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Polioptila caeruleaOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Old World Warblers and Gnatcatchers (Sylviidae)

Breeding Location:

Forest edge, Bushes, shrubs, and thickets, Mountains, Desert, Desert, semi

Breeding Type:

Monogamous, Solitary nester

Breeding Population:

Egg Color:

Pale blue, usually with brown flecks

Number of Eggs:

4 - 5

Incubation Days:

Egg Incubator:

Both sexes

Nest Material:

Fine plant fibers with lining of bark pieces and finer materials.

Migration:

Migratory

Overview

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Small, flycatcher-like perching bird, blue-gray upperparts, white underparts, prominent white eye-ring. Wings are dark. Black tail is long and white-edged. Forages in thickets, trees and shrubs for insects, their eggs and larvae. Weak fluttering flight on shallow wing beats.

Range and Habitat

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Breeds from northern California, Colorado, southern Great Lakes region, southern Ontario, and New Hampshire southward. Spends winters from southern California to the Gulf coast and the Carolinas. Preferred habitats include deciduous woodlands, streamside thickets, live oaks, pinyon-juniper, and chaparral.

Breeding and Nesting

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Four or five pale blue eggs, usually with brown flecks, are laid in a small cup nest of plant down and spider webs decorated with lichens and fastened to a horizontal branch at almost any height above the ground. Both parents incubate eggs for 13 days.

Foraging and Feeding

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Eats aphids, hemipterans, beetles, moths, butterflies, flies, ants, bees, wasps, and spiders; forages by moving up and down outer branches of trees or shrubs.

Readily Eats

Meal Worms, Sunflower, Nut Meal

Vocalization

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Song is a thin, musical warble. Call note is a distinctive, whining "pzzzz", with a nasal quality.

Similar Species

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Other male gnatcatchers have variable amounts of black (depending on species, season, and age) on crown. Other female gnatcatchers have brown-tinged tails.

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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

● Song: "zee-you- zee-you"

● Foraging & Feeding: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Eats aphids, hemipterans, beetles, moths, butterflies, flies, ants, bees, wasps, and spiders; forages by moving up and down outer branches of trees or shrubs.

● Breeding & nesting: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Four or five pale blue eggs, usually with brown flecks, are laid in a small cup nest of plant down and spider webs decorated with lichens and fastened to a horizontal branch at almost any height above the ground. Both parents incubate eggs for 13 days.

● Similar species: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Other male gnatcatchers have variable amounts of black (depending on species, season, and age) on crown. Other female gnatcatchers have brown-tinged tails.

Flight Pattern

Weak fluttering flight with shallow wing beats.

● Range & Habitat: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Breeds from northern California, Colorado, southern Great Lakes region, southern Ontario, and New Hampshire southward. Spends winters from southern California to the Gulf coast and the Carolinas. Preferred habitats include deciduous woodlands, streamside thickets, live oaks, pinyon-juniper, and chaparral.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^Population

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.2 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America