Tricky Flycatchers
Yellow-bellied flycatcher. Photo: Carla Schmakel
We’re now past the steep part of the spring migration in Lake County: April and May were filled with the visual delights of charismatic warblers, diverse water birds, and iridescent hummingbirds. However, perhaps underappreciated is the auditory richness of bird calls and songs that also fill the air during (and after) a migration.
Kenn Kaufman, field editor for Audubon magazine, says, “Birds, like other creatures, must be able to recognize their own kind, at least during breeding season. While some other animals may identify potential mates by smell or other chemical cues, birds generally rely on sight and sound.” For people, learning to listen to birds and auditory clues for bird identification opens up our aperture to appreciate the birds around us while also connecting us to our natural environment. Recent studies also suggest that listening to birds can confer mental health benefits to people.
On a recent LCAS bird walk at Edward L. Ryerson Conservation Area, a group observed the song of an Acadian Flycatcher. Walk leader and LCAS board member Matt Tobin explained to the group:
“The Acadian Flycatcher is one of five flycatcher species (in our area) that are notoriously similar looking and, as a result, difficult to visually differentiate.
The other four include the:
Willow Flycatcher - which breeds in our area, and is more likely to be out in open, wetter areas or woodland edges;
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher - which is a migrant, and breeds farther north;
Alder Flycatcher - also a migrant that breeds farther north; and
Least Flycatcher - can breed in our area, but usually farther north.
I would say the Least Flycatcher is probably the easiest to distinguish by sight because it tends to be smaller with a more prominent eye ring. Habitat and time of year observed can help narrow down the ID, but distinguishing them by sound is the best way to determine the species.”
There are over 400 birds in the tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) family globally. In addition to the flycatchers mentioned above, locally we also enjoy the company of Eastern Kingbirds, Eastern Phoebe, Great Crested Flycatchers, and Eastern Woods Pewees. However, those mentioned by Tobin are in the genus Empidonax, and are notoriously difficult to differentiate visually. In fact, the Willow Flycatcher and Alder Flycatcher were considered the same species - the Traill’s Flycatcher - until 1973. Of the five Empidonax flycatchers, identification by ear may be the best way to identify the species. Listening to the individual songs and calls using the Merlin or the Audubon app are a great way to start to learn the distinct calls before heading out into the field.
According to Audubon Magazine, flycatchers are in a distinct group of birds that possess more primitive, simpler muscles for sound production. Additionally, they develop their songs more from instinct than parental modeling. Perhaps this is fortunate for those of us who might wish to identify which flycatcher species we are hearing. If we can count on a hard-wired, instinctual template as driving flycatcher songs, we ought to be able to learn to identify those templates ourselves, leading to accurate identification by ear. And that can improve our familiarity with what we’re hearing and enrich our enjoyment of birding throughout early summer in Lake County.
If you’d like to learn more about North American Flycatchers, there’s a recent field guide series by Cin-Ty Lee and Andrew Birch from Princeton University Press specifically on flycatchers with two successive books from 2023 and 2024:
Field Guide to North American Flycatchers: Empidonax and Pewees (2023), and
Field Guide to North American Flycatchers: Kingbirds and Myiarchus (2024)
Get to know their songs here:
Footnotes:
1. Audubon Magazine, Spring 2024. “Ask Kenn: Why are Flycatchers So Hard to Identify?” p 51.
2. Stobbe, E., Sundermann, J., Ascone, L. et al. Birdsongs alleviate anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants. Sci Rep 12, 16414 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20841-0
3. Wikipedia
4. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Willow_Flycatcher/overview