Acadian Flycatcher

Empidonax virescensOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Flycatchers (Tyrannidae)

Breeding Location:

Bushes, shrubs, and thickets, Forest, Swamps

Breeding Type:

Monogamous

Breeding Population:

Egg Color:

Creamy white with sparse brown spots

Number of Eggs:

2 - 4

Incubation Days:

13 - 15

Egg Incubator:

Female

Nest Material:

Sticks, grass, dried stems, and bits of bark and cobweb., Lined with grass, hair, and plant down.

Migration:

Migratory

Overview

Acadian Flycatcher: Small flycatcher with olive-gray upperparts, pale gray throat, distinctive pale yellow eye-ring, white lower breast, yellow belly, undertail coverts. Wings are olive-gray with two buff wing bars. Long broad-based bill with yellow-orange lower mandible. Black legs, feet.

Range and Habitat

Acadian Flycatcher: Breeds from southern Minnesota east through southern New England, south to the Gulf Coast and central Florida. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include beech, maple, and hemlock forests, usually under the canopy but also in clearings, often in wooded ravines.

Breeding and Nesting

Acadian Flycatcher: Two to four brown-spotted, creamy white eggs are laid in a sloppy cup nest made of sticks, grass, dried stems, bits of bark, and cobweb. Nest is lined with grass, hair, and plant down, and built on a horizontal limb well out from the trunk. Incubation ranges from 13 to 15 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Acadian Flycatcher: Eats a wide variety of flying insects. Perches in shade on lower to mid-level branches in thick trees to await food, then dashes out to snatch insect in mid-air.

Readily Eats

Meal Worms

Vocalization

Acadian Flycatcher: Call is a soft "peace" or "peeet." On breeding grounds, male utters a mechanical "ti,ti,ti,ti" while moving from one perch to another.

Similar Species

Acadian Flycatcher: Least Flycatcher has smaller bill, more brown-olive upperparts, gray white underparts, bright white wing-bars and eye-ring, and different voice.

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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.

Acadian Flycatcher

● Song: "peace", "peet"

● Foraging & Feeding: Acadian Flycatcher: Eats a wide variety of flying insects. Perches in shade on lower to mid-level branches in thick trees to await food, then dashes out to snatch insect in mid-air.

● Breeding & nesting: Acadian Flycatcher: Two to four brown-spotted, creamy white eggs are laid in a sloppy cup nest made of sticks, grass, dried stems, bits of bark, and cobweb. Nest is lined with grass, hair, and plant down, and built on a horizontal limb well out from the trunk. Incubation ranges from 13 to 15 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Acadian Flycatcher: Least Flycatcher has smaller bill, more brown-olive upperparts, gray white underparts, bright white wing-bars and eye-ring, and different voice.

Flight Pattern

Weak fluttering flight with shallow wing beats.

Acadian Flycatcher Fall Male Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: Acadian Flycatcher: Breeds from southern Minnesota east through southern New England, south to the Gulf Coast and central Florida. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include beech, maple, and hemlock forests, usually under the canopy but also in clearings, often in wooded ravines.

^BreedingMonogamous

^Population

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.5 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America