Eastern Kingbird

I met this Eastern Kingbird a couple weeks ago. This is a bird I usually see in a season, though rarely often. I talked a bit about them before. They're almost famous for their aggression towards other birds they consider to be a threat, including birds that are quite a bit larger than they are like hawks, crows, or herons. This tyrannical behavior is behind their scientific name of Tyrannus tyrannus. If you see a white and nearly black bird singlehandedly dive bombing larger birds, you might be seeing an Eastern Kingbird.

Though they'll readily eat fruit (especially outside of breeding season), these birds are flycatchers like the Eastern Phoebe and the Great Crested Flycatcher. All 3 have closer relatives than each other, though those relatives tend to live outside New Jersey.

May 18, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 203066566, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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