Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
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Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
Adult. Photo: Birdiegal/Shutterstock
Gray Flycatcher
Empidonax wrightii
| Conservation status | Still widespread and fairly common. |
|---|---|
| Family | Tyrant Flycatchers |
| Habitat | Sagebrush; also pinyon and juniper. In winter, willows, brush. Breeds in open and rather arid habitats, especially sagebrush plains with a few taller trees or shrubs, also scrubby woods of juniper and pinyon pine. Winters in mesquite groves and in streamside willows and other trees, in lowlands. |
Photo Gallery
Feeding Behavior
Forages by watching for insects from an exposed perch, then flying out to catch them in bill. Typically perches low, and often flies down to ground for insects; also catches many insects in mid-air, and takes some from foliage and twigs while hovering.
Eggs
3-4. Creamy white. Incubation is probably by female only, about 14 days. Young: Both parents bring food for nestlings. Young leave nest and make first flights about 16 days after hatching.
Young
Both parents bring food for nestlings. Young leave nest and make first flights about 16 days after hatching.
Diet
Insects. Diet not known in detail, but reported to feed only on insects, including beetles, wasps, moths, grasshoppers, and others.
Nesting
May sometimes nest in loose colonies in good habitat. In places, this species and Dusky Flycatcher overlap in nesting habitat, and they will defend territories against each other. Nest site is typically in vertical crotch of sagebrush or on horizontal branch of juniper or pinyon pine, 3-20' above the ground. Nest (built mostly by female, perhaps sometimes with help from male) is a deep cup, rather bulky and loosely constructed. Made of weeds, strips of bark, grasses, twigs; lined with plant down, fine bark fibers, animal fur, feathers. Nest is usually in dense part of plant and is not conspicuous.
How Climate Change Will Reshape the Range of the Gray Flycatcher
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 Gray Flycatcher
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.
