Bird name:

Acadian Flycatcher

Empidonax virescens

Order

PASSERIFORMES

Family

Flycatchers (Tyrannidae)

Code 4

ACFL

Code 6

EMPVIR

ITIS

178339

Breeding Location:

Bushes, shrubs, and thickets, Forest, Swamps

Breeding Type:

Monogamous

Breeding Population:

Egg Color:

Creamy white with sparse brown spots

Number of Eggs:

2 - 4

Incubation Days:

13 - 15

Egg Incubator:

Female

Nest Material:

Sticks, grass, dried stems, and bits of bark and cobweb., Lined with grass, hair, and plant down.

Migration:

Migratory

RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS

General

Acadian Flycatcher: Small flycatcher with olive-gray upperparts, pale gray throat, distinctive pale yellow eye-ring, white lower breast, yellow belly and undertail coverts. Wings are olive-gray with two buff wing bars. Bill is long and broad-based with yellow-orange lower mandible. Sexes are similar. Juvenile is similar but with olive-brown upperparts.

Range and Habitat

Acadian Flycatcher: Breeds from southern Minnesota east through southern New England, south to the Gulf Coast and central Florida. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include beech, maple, and hemlock forests, usually under the canopy but also in clearings, often in wooded ravines.

Breeding and Nesting

Acadian Flycatcher: Two to four brown-spotted, creamy white eggs are laid in a sloppy cup nest made of sticks, grass, dried stems, bits of bark, and cobweb. Nest is lined with grass, hair, and plant down, and built on a horizontal limb well out from the trunk. Incubation ranges from 13 to 15 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Acadian Flycatcher: Eats a wide variety of flying insects. Perches in shade on lower to mid-level branches in thick trees to await food, then dashes out to snatch insect in mid-air.

Readily Eats

Meal Worms

Vocalization

Acadian Flycatcher: Call is a soft "peace" or "peeet." On breeding grounds, male utters a mechanical "ti,ti,ti,ti" while moving from one perch to another.

Similar Species

Acadian Flycatcher: Least Flycatcher has smaller bill, more brown-olive upperparts, gray white underparts, bright white wing-bars and eye-ring, and different voice.

Percevia^® Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The Percevia field guides, database and search protocol patent pending.

The best bird guide and bird watching search engine to identify birds!

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.

Undertail coverts

Small feathers that cover the areas where the retrices (tail feathers) attach to the rump.

Upperparts

Back, rump, hindneck, wings, and crown.

Belly

The ventral part of the bird, or the area between the flanks on each side and the crissum and breast. Flight muscles are located between the belly and the breast.

Breast

The upper front part of a bird.

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