Eastern Wood-Pewee
Contopus virens

Conservation status | Still widespread and fairly common, but surveys show a slight decline in recent decades. Reasons for decline are not well known. |
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Family | Tyrant Flycatchers |
Habitat | Woodlands, groves. Breeds in forest (mainly deciduous, sometimes mixed, and seldom coniferous forest). Favors margins of clearings, such as around meadows, roadsides, ponds, or small openings in the forest. Winters at forest edges and in scrubby woods in tropics. |
Photo Gallery
Feeding Behavior
Does most foraging by watching from an exposed perch within a tree, then flying out to catch an insect in the air. Also takes insects from foliage or twigs while hovering, and may descend to pick insects from grass or other plants close to the ground.
Eggs
3, sometimes 2, rarely 4. Whitish, with brown and lavender blotches often concentrated toward larger end. Incubation is by female, 12-13 days. Young: Both parents feed young. Age of young at first flight about 14-18 days.
Young
Both parents feed young. Age of young at first flight about 14-18 days.
Diet
Mostly insects. Feeds almost entirely on insects and other arthropods, taking only small numbers of berries. Diet in summer includes various kinds of flies, also wasps, bees, winged ants, beetles, moths, true bugs, and grasshoppers; also some spiders and millipedes.
Nesting
Male sings in spring, especially at dawn and dusk, to defend nesting territory. Courtship behavior is not well known, may involve male actively chasing female through treetops. Nest site is in tree (usually deciduous), saddled on a horizontal branch well out from the trunk. Usually 15-45' above ground, can be lower or much higher. Nest (probably built by female alone) is compact open cup of grass, plant fibers, and spiderwebs, the outside usually decorated with lichens. Nest seems small for size of bird. From the side or below, nest may look like a bump or knot on the branch.
Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
Learn more about these drawings.
Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
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Migration
Strictly a summer resident in North America, arriving on breeding grounds mostly in May, very few remaining after beginning of October. Probably migrates at night.

- All Seasons - Common
- All Seasons - Uncommon
- Breeding - Common
- Breeding - Uncommon
- Winter - Common
- Winter - Uncommon
- Migration - Common
- Migration - Uncommon
See a fully interactive migration map for this species on the Bird Migration Explorer.
Learn moreSongs and Calls
A plaintive pee-ah-weee or pee-weee, falling in pitch on last note.Learn more about this sound collection.
How Climate Change Will Reshape the Range of the Eastern Wood-Pewee
Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
Zoom in to see how this species’s current range will shift, expand, and contract under increased global temperatures.
Climate threats facing the Eastern Wood-Pewee
Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too.