Yellow-bellied Flycatcher

Empidonax flaviventrisOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Flycatchers (Tyrannidae)

General

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher Spring Male: Small flycatcher with olive-green upperparts, yellow underparts, and olive-green wash on breast. Spectacles are pale yellow. Wings are dark with two white bars. Sexes are similar.

Range and Habitat

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher: Breeds from central Canada and Newfoundland south to Great Lakes region, northern New York, northern New England, and Maritime Provinces. Spends winters from Mexico to Panama.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"pse-k", "per-WEE", "chiu"

Interesting Facts

The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher was first described in 1843 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, an American ornithologist and ichthyologist.

It winters in semi-open habitats of Central America, including coffee plantations. Shade-grown coffee plantations have higher densities than sun-grown coffee plantations.

It is the easiest of the eastern Empidonax flycatchers to identify.

A group of flycatchers has many collective nouns, including an "outfield", "swatting", "zapper", and "zipper" of flycatchers.

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.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher: Small flycatcher with olive-green upperparts, yellow underparts, and olive-green wash on breast. Spectacles are pale yellow. The wings are dark with two white bars. Feeds on a variety of insects and spiders. Weak fluttering flight with shallow rapid wing beats.

● Song: "pse-k", "per-WEE", "chiu"

● Foraging & Feeding: Yellow-bellied Flycatcher: Feeds on a variety of insects, including, beetles, moths, tent caterpillars, flies, ants, and some spiders.

● Breeding & nesting: Yellow-bellied Flycatcher: Three to five white eggs with brown spots at large end are laid in a nest made of twigs, rootlets, weeds, and moss, and lined with thin rootlets, grass, and fresh leaves. Nest is usually built two feet or less above the ground, atop a hillock of moss or upturned stumps among roots of fallen trees.

● Similar species: Yellow-bellied Flycatcher: Acadian Flycatcher has pale gray throat, buff to white wing-bars, larger bill, and yellow wash on belly and undertail coverts.

Flight Pattern

Weak fluttering flight with shallow rapid wing beats., Sallies from perch to hawk insects and returns to the same or nearby perch.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher Spring Male Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: Yellow-bellied Flycatcher: Breeds from central Canada and Newfoundland south to Great Lakes region, northern New York, northern New England, and Maritime Provinces. Spends winters from Mexico to Panama.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^Population

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.4 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America