The Western Wood-Pewee, Contopus sordidulus, is a small tyrant flycatcher

Tyrant flycatcher

The tyrant flycatchers are a family of passerine birds which occur throughout North and South America. They are considered the largest family of birds on Earth, with more than 400 species. They are the most diverse avian family in every country in the Americas, except for the United States and...

. Adults are gray-olive on the upperparts with light underparts, washed with olive on the breast. They have two wing bars and a dark bill with yellow at the base of the lower mandible. This bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 is very similar in appearance to the Eastern Wood-Pewee; the two birds were formerly considered to be one species. The call of C. sordidulus is a loud buzzy peeer; the song consists of three rapid descending tsees ending with a descending peeer.

Habitat and ecology

Their breeding habitat is open wooded areas in western North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. These birds migrate

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

 to South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 at the end of summer. The female lays two or three egg

Egg (biology)

An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...

s in an open cup nest on a horizontal tree branch or within a tree cavity; California black oak

California Black Oak

Quercus kelloggii, the California Black Oak, also known as simply Black Oak, or Kellogg Oak, is an oak in the red oak section , native to western North America...

 forests are examples of suitable nesting habitat for this species of bird. Both parents feed the young.

They wait on a perch at a middle height in a tree and fly out to catch insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s in flight (hawking

Hawking (birds)

Hawking is a feeding strategy in birds involving catching flying insects in the air. The term usually refers to a technique of sallying out from a perch to snatch an insect and then returning to the same or a different perch...

), sometimes hovering to pick insects from vegetation (gleaning

Gleaning (birds)

Gleaning is a term for a feeding strategy by birds in which they catch invertebrate prey, mainly arthropods, by plucking them from foliage or the ground, from crevices such as rock faces and under the eaves of houses, or even, as in the case of ticks and lice, from living animals. This behavior is...

).

External links

• Western Wood-pewee Information and Photos - South Dakota Birds and Birding
• Western Wood-Pewee videos on the Internet Bird Collection
• "Western Wood-Pewee" photo gallery VIREO Photo-High Res--(Close-up)
• Photo-High Res; Article – "Utah Birds"–(clickable Photo Gallery)