Eastern Wood-Pewee
by J McCombie
Title
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Artist
J McCombie
Medium
Photograph - Untouched
Description
This piece has been featured in the FAA Group, "Wildlife ...".
The olive-brown Eastern Wood-Pewee is inconspicuous until it opens its bill and gives its unmistakable slurred call: pee-a-wee!a characteristic sound of Eastern summers. These small flycatchers perch on dead branches in the mid-canopy and sally out after flying insects. Though identifying flycatchers can be confusing, pewees are grayer overall, with longer wings, than other flycatchers. They lack the eyerings of the Empidonax species, while theyre less brown (with stronger wingbars) than a phoebe. With a careful look theyre quite distinctive. Family: Tyrant Flycatchers
Size & Shape: Eastern Wood-Pewees are medium-sized flycatchers with long wings and tails. Like other pewee species, they have short legs, upright posture, and a peaked crown that tends to give the head a triangular shape. Their long wings are an important clue to separate them from Empidonax flycatcher species. Color Pattern: Eastern Wood-Pewees are olive-gray birds with dark wings, and little to no yellow on the underparts. The sides of the breast are dark with an off-white throat and belly, giving a vested appearance typical of pewees. They show little or no eyering. Adults have thin, white wingbars; those of juveniles are buffy. The underside of the bill is mostly yellow-orange, except in some juveniles.
Behavior: Eastern Wood-Pewees are sit-and-wait predators that sally out from arboreal perches after insects and return to the same or a nearby perch. Like other members of their genus, they often perch high in trees, generally in fairly exposed places providing good viewpoints.
Habitat: Woodlands, groves. Breeds in forest (mainly deciduous, sometimes mixed, and seldom coniferous forest). Favors margins of clearings, such as around meadows, roadsides, ponds, or small openings in the forest. Winters at forest edges and in scrubby woods in tropics. Eastern Wood-Pewees are most common in deciduous forest and woodland, but you may find them in nearly any forested habitat, even smaller woodlots, for breeding as long as it is fairly open. As migrants, these pewees can occur in nearly any woodlot or other treed area.
In eastern woods in summer, the plaintive whistled pee-a-wee of this small flycatcher is often heard before the bird is seen. The bird itself is usually somewhere in the leafy middle story of the trees, perched on a bare twig, darting out to catch passing insects. The Wood-Pewee sings most often at dawn and dusk, and it may continue singing quite late in the evening, after most songbirds have fallen silent.
Feeding Behavior: Does most foraging by watching from an exposed perch within a tree, then flying out to catch an insect in the air (hawking). Also takes insects from foliage or twigs while hovering, and may descend to pick insects from grass or other plants close to the ground. Diet: Mostly insects. Feeds almost entirely on insects and other arthropods, taking only small numbers of berries. Diet in summer includes various kinds of flies, also wasps, bees, winged ants, beetles, moths, true bugs, and grasshoppers; also some spiders and millipedes.
Nesting: Male sings in spring, especially at dawn and dusk, to defend nesting territory. Courtship behavior is not well known, may involve male actively chasing female through treetops. Nest site is in tree (usually deciduous), saddled on a horizontal branch well out from the trunk. Usually 15-45' above ground, can be lower or much higher. Nest (probably built by female alone) is compact open cup of grass, plant fibers, and spiderwebs, the outside usually decorated with lichens. Nest seems small for size of bird. From the side or below, nest may look like a bump or knot on the branch. Eggs: 3, sometimes 2, rarely 4. Whitish, with brown and lavender blotches often concentrated toward larger end. Incubation is by female, 12-13 days. Young: Both parents feed young. Age of young at first flight about 14-18 days. Young: Both parents feed young. Age of young at first flight about 14-18 days.
Conservation status: Still widespread and fairly common, but surveys show a slight decline in recent decades. Reasons for decline are not well known.
Uploaded
February 27th, 2016
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