Bird name:

Eastern Wood-Pewee

Contopus virens

Order

PASSERIFORMES

Family

Flycatchers (Tyrannidae)

Code 4

EAWP

Code 6

CONVIR

ITIS

178359

Breeding Location:

Forests

Breeding Type:

Monogamous

Breeding Population:

Fairly common

Egg Color:

White with brown and purple blotches

Number of Eggs:

2 - 4

Incubation Days:

12 - 13

Egg Incubator:

Female

Nest Material:

Dried grasses, pine needles, horsehair, and plant stems.

Migration:

Migratory

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General

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Small flycatcher with gray-olive upperparts and pale gray underparts. Bill is dark except for yellow base of lower mandible. Wings are dark with two white bars. Sexes are similar. Juvenile has all-dark bill.

Range and Habitat

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Breeds from eastern Great Plains to the Atlantic Ocean, ranging from southern Canada (Saskatchewan to the Maritime Provinces) to northern Florida, the Gulf coast and central Texas. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include northern hardwood, pine-oak, oak-hickory, bottomland hardwood, southern pine savannah, and midwestern forests; also found in orchards, parks, roadsides, and suburban areas.

Breeding and Nesting

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Two to four white eggs with brown and purple blotches are laid in a shallow cup of woven grass, weeds, wool, bark strips, twigs, roots, mosses, pine needles, and leaves camouflaged with spider webs and lichens. Nest is built on a horizontal limb well out from trunk, frequently on a dead twig of a living tree. Incubation ranges from 12 to 13 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Feeds on small flying insects, including flies, bees, butterflies, wasps, and beetles. Sallies out from an exposed perch to capture prey, usually returning to the same perch; occasionally takes insects from the ground or vegetation.

Readily Eats

Meal Worms

Vocalization

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Song is a slurred "pee-ah-wee." Call is a rapid, shrill "pe-e-e-e-e-e", usually made when disturbed at the nest.

Similar Species

Eastern Wood-Pewee: Distinguished from Western Wood-Pewee by voice where ranges overlap.

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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.

Underparts

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

Upperparts

Back, rump, hindneck, wings, and crown.

Lower mandible

The lower part of the bill.

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