northeast-flora-and-fauna

It looks like this Eastern Phoebe has caught a meal. Could it be a wasp? Although phoebes are tyrant flycatchers , I'm pretty sure they'll eat most insects including the hymenopterans . I think I see: A little bit of striping on the thorax, suggesting 1 of many bees/wasps or their mimics. An insect a little longer than a honeybee or bumblebee. This was the 2nd year in a row that I got a picture of a phoebe with food in its mouth . While we (correctly) think of phoebes as birds posing no threat to us, to many insects they are giant, ferocious predators. The Eastern Phoebe is almost certainly the tyrant flycatcher species I encounter the most, though Eastern Kingbirds and Great Crested Flycatchers aren't too hard to find either. May 18, 2023 at Willowwood Arboretum Photo 292812711, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

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)

Here's another bird that's supposed to be fairly abundant but that I rarely see, a Great Crested Flycatcher . Though this bird could have been using NJ as a resting spot on its way to nesting further north, it's probably more likely that this flycatcher will stick around here. NJ is well within their breeding range. These birds appear to like being high in tree canopies and under dense foliage. This makes them harder to spot (which most birds probably like) but also means they're foraging in a slightly different area than the other flycatchers. The Great Crested Flycatcher actually looks pretty similar to 3-4 of its relatives , though none of those relatives are likely to be found in NJ. The yellow patch on their belly/breast also extends further up than on those other birds, which more or less eliminates the possibility of a bird that's just way out of its usual range. Like all flycatchers insects are a favorite meal, but they're a bit more omnivorous than most...

Sorry dragonfly fans, but today I've got a bird for you. Here's my second Great Crested Flycatcher picture of the season. (Here's the first one .) This is probably a coincidence, though both my pictures of the Great Crested Flycatcher were at NJ Audubon-related locations, Scherman-Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary (first) and the Plainsboro Preserve (second). As you might have guessed, a bird with "flycatcher" in its name probably isn't going to winter in NJ where/when flies and other insects are rare. Though they're not strict insectivores, they're better off migrating to where the insects reside during the winter months. Hopefully this fella is currently enjoying a mosquito snack in the Caribbean, southern Central America, or northern South America. July 23, 2021 at the Plainsboro Preserve Photo 148592878, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

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 bi...