Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Polioptila caeruleaOrder: PASSERIFORMES Family: Old World Warblers and Gnatcatchers (Sylviidae)

Codes: Common Name: BGGN Scientific Name: POLCAE ITIS Taxonomic No.: 179853

Breeding Location:

Forest edge, Bushes, shrubs, and thickets, Mountains, Desert, Desert, semi

Breeding Type:

Monogamous, Solitary nester

Breeding Population:

Egg Color:

Pale blue, usually with brown flecks

Number of Eggs:

4 - 5

Incubation Days:

Egg Incubator:

Both sexes

Nest Material:

Fine plant fibers with lining of bark pieces and finer materials.

Migration:

Migratory

General

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Small, flycatcher-like perching bird with blue-gray upperparts, white underparts, and prominent white eye-ring. Wings are dark. Black tail is long and white-edged. Female tends toward grayer tones.

Range and Habitat

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Breeds from northern California, Colorado, southern Great Lakes region, southern Ontario, and New Hampshire southward. Spends winters from southern California to the Gulf coast and the Carolinas. Preferred habitats include deciduous woodlands, streamside thickets, live oaks, pinyon-juniper, and chaparral.

Breeding and Nesting

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Four or five pale blue eggs, usually with brown flecks, are laid in a small cup nest of plant down and spider webs decorated with lichens and fastened to a horizontal branch at almost any height above the ground. Both parents incubate eggs for 13 days.

Foraging and Feeding

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Eats aphids, hemipterans, beetles, moths, butterflies, flies, ants, bees, wasps, and spiders; forages by moving up and down outer branches of trees or shrubs.

Readily Eats

Meal Worms, Sunflower, Nut Meal

Vocalization

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Song is a thin, musical warble. Call note is a distinctive, whining "pzzzz", with a nasal quality.

Similar Species

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Other male gnatcatchers have variable amounts of black (depending on species, season, and age) on crown. Other female gnatcatchers have brown-tinged tails.

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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.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Small, flycatcher-like perching bird, blue-gray upperparts, white underparts, prominent white eye-ring. Wings are dark. Black tail is long and white-edged. Forages in thickets, trees and shrubs for insects, their eggs and larvae. Weak fluttering flight on shallow wing beats.

● Song: "zee-you- zee-you"

● Foraging & Feeding: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Eats aphids, hemipterans, beetles, moths, butterflies, flies, ants, bees, wasps, and spiders; forages by moving up and down outer branches of trees or shrubs.

● Breeding & nesting: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Four or five pale blue eggs, usually with brown flecks, are laid in a small cup nest of plant down and spider webs decorated with lichens and fastened to a horizontal branch at almost any height above the ground. Both parents incubate eggs for 13 days.

● Similar species: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Other male gnatcatchers have variable amounts of black (depending on species, season, and age) on crown. Other female gnatcatchers have brown-tinged tails.

Flight Pattern

Weak fluttering flight with shallow wing beats.

● Range & Habitat: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Breeds from northern California, Colorado, southern Great Lakes region, southern Ontario, and New Hampshire southward. Spends winters from southern California to the Gulf coast and the Carolinas. Preferred habitats include deciduous woodlands, streamside thickets, live oaks, pinyon-juniper, and chaparral.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^Population

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.2 Ounces

Underparts

Belly, undertail coverts, chest, flanks, and foreneck.

Upperparts

Back, rump, hindneck, wings, and crown.

4 and 6 letter alpha codes

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

Field Guide to Birds of North America