Eastern Wood-Pewee and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers

There is a uniquely New World family of birds called tyrant flycatchers that is found only in the Americas. There are many dozens of species in this family, but only about 35 in North America. This group is separated from the vast order of perching birds by lacking a developed larynx, making it generally a poor singer.

This does not mean that these birds do not have songs and calls. For a few, the voice is exquisitely sweet, even if short. They are a pugnacious bunch as their name implies, and they use their limited voice with abandon whenever they confront other birds or each other. The paradox is that many of these birds look very similar and their voice is often the only thing that sets them apart from other members of their family.

The tyrant flycatchers are the oldest of all the perching species, and they have a kingly demeanor befitting their ancient lineage. They sit erect and motionless on a branch, waiting for an insect to approach in the air, then sally out to seize it, returning to a perch to consume and wait for more.

Many of them are very small and inconspicuous, and when they return from their tropical haunts to our forests and thickets, we have to seek them out if we want to enjoy their antics. This is usually later in May, when the leaves are fully out and they can melt into the greenery unseen, but often heard.

There was a small flycatcher in a low bush on the edge of the woods on one of the many cloudy days recently. It sat in the open and appeared to be one of the empidonax flycatchers. This is a group of eleven different species in North America that exemplify the flycatcher family, because they all look much alike and are told apart more by their voice. The word 'empidonax' means 'king of the gnats.'

However, this bird lacked any eye ring and sported a somber dark coat rather than the light gray-green of the empidonax. It did not utter a sound, so we had to rely on these marks to determine that it was an eastern wood pewee, away from its normal haunts under the shaded canopy of the mature forest. This bird was tame, as over and over it jumped up to grasp a flying bug and settled back down in the top of a small sapling.

An hour later on a narrow trail through a dense thicket of half-grown trees, the note of another flycatcher was heard. It was a single note repeated, but distinctive enough to guess which of the flycatchers it might be. With patience, the bird appeared, an empidonax showing a belly suffused with muted yellow.

The yellow-bellied flycatcher breeds in the thick spruce forests of the north, passing quietly through southern New England in late May without fanfare. Usually we never see this species, but hear one of its several distinctive short calls, a sound in the woods, the maker never to be seen. It likes the thickest part of the undergrowth, and we viewed this bird only because we walked a trail through its habitat.

One of these calls is a plaintive slow whistle, "per-weee', rising at the end. For a bird with a stunted voicebox, it is a remarkable sound, worthy of royalty, pure in tone and gently soothing to the ear. The wood pewee we had seen earlier has a similar and even more amazing song from which it gets its name, 'peee-er-weee.'

Sometimes the pewee shortens its version to sound almost exactly like the yellow-bellied flycatcher song. It is one of the marks of the master birder to tell apart some of the slightly different calls of the flycatchers, but at least it can be done. The kingly robe of some of the empidonax group is so alike it is beyond the powers of even the keenest eye to tell them apart.

We are fortunate to have the wood pewee as a breeder in our own forests of southern New England. The next time you walk in the woods on an early morning, listen for this royal singer, the tiny tyrant of the woods. You will fall under its siren spell and may never return.