Eastern Wood-Pewee

Contopus virensOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Flycatchers (Tyrannidae)

General

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Small flycatcher with gray-olive upperparts and pale gray underparts. Bill is dark except for yellow base of lower mandible. Wings are dark with two white bars. Sexes are similar. Juvenile has all-dark bill.

Range and Habitat

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Breeds from eastern Great Plains to the Atlantic Ocean, ranging from southern Canada (Saskatchewan to the Maritime Provinces) to northern Florida, the Gulf coast and central Texas. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include northern hardwood, pine-oak, oak-hickory, bottomland hardwood, southern pine savannah, and midwestern forests; also found in orchards, parks, roadsides, and suburban areas.

Voice Text

"pee-ah-wee", "pe-e-e-e-e-e"

Interesting Facts

The Eastern and Western Wood-Pewees are very difficult to tell apart visually. Their breeding ranges overlap in a very narrow zone in the Great Plains. Despite their similarity, no evidence has been found that the two species interbreed in that area.
One potential cause of their decline is the overpopulation of white-tailed deer in the Eastern forests. In areas with high deer density, the intermediate canopy is disturbed by browsing, affecting the foraging space of the flycatcher.
Though this bird sings throughout the day, listen for its ballads before dawn's light and well after sunset when this activity peaks.
A group of pewees are collectively known as a "dribble" and a "squirt" of pewees.

Author

Gary Owen Dick

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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.

Eastern Wood-Pewee

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Small flycatcher, gray-olive upperparts, pale gray underparts. Bill is dark except for yellow base of lower mandible. Wings are dark with two white bars. Black legs, feet. Feeds on insects, spiders and berries. Slow fluttering direct flight on shallow wing beats.

● Song: "pee-ah-wee", "pe-e-e-e-e-e"

● Foraging & Feeding: Eastern Wood-Pewee: Feeds on small flying insects, including flies, bees, butterflies, wasps, and beetles. Sallies out from an exposed perch to capture prey, usually returning to the same perch; occasionally takes insects from the ground or vegetation.

● Breeding & nesting: Eastern Wood-Pewee: Two to four white eggs with brown and purple blotches are laid in a shallow cup of woven grass, weeds, wool, bark strips, twigs, roots, mosses, pine needles, and leaves camouflaged with spider webs and lichens. Nest is built on a horizontal limb well out from trunk, frequently on a dead twig of a living tree. Incubation ranges from 12 to 13 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Eastern Wood-Pewee: Distinguished from Western Wood-Pewee by voice where ranges overlap.

Flight Pattern

Slow flight with shallow wing beats.

● Range & Habitat: Eastern Wood-Pewee: Breeds from eastern Great Plains to the Atlantic Ocean, ranging from southern Canada (Saskatchewan to the Maritime Provinces) to northern Florida, the Gulf coast and central Texas. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include northern hardwood, pine-oak, oak-hickory, bottomland hardwood, southern pine savannah, and midwestern forests; also found in orchards, parks, roadsides, and suburban areas.

^BreedingMonogamous

^PopulationFairly common

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.5 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America