Great Crested Flycatcher

I'm sure I needed iNaturalist help to identify this Great Crested Flycatcher; I think this is my first picture of one, and I don't routinely see them either. They do spend a lot of time at the top of tree canopies, where it's hard for us ground-dwellers to spot them. For that matter, that's their ecological niche - patrolling treetops above most of the similar birds.

Fortunately the birds that look most like the Great Crested Flycatcher are the Brown-crested Flycatcher and the Ash-throated Flycatcher, neither of which lives around here.

Though these guys are flycatchers, they're not against eating fruit. They build their nests in cavities, so you'll sometimes see them use a birdhouse. It's probably a good thing you don't see their nests since they'd probably give off a bit of a dump vibe; they'll use shed snakeskins, cellophane, and crinkly plastic to put together their nests.

Flycatchers are a reminder why we should refer to this order of birds as passerines, since the term "songbird" isn't especially descriptive of them. The Great Crested Flycatcher's song consists of "whee-eep!". 

July 18, 2021 at Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary
Photo 148188007, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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