Guide to North American Birds
Conservation status Surveys show some declining populations in southern part of breeding range; however, still widespread and common.
Family Tyrant Flycatchers
Habitat Open woods, aspen groves, orchards, shade trees. Breeds in deciduous or mixed woodlands, seldom in purely coniferous groves. Usually around clearings or edges, but sometimes in the interior of dry woods. Winters in the tropics around woodland edges and second growth.
The eleven Empidonax flycatchers in North America are notorious for causing trouble for birders. All are small birds with wing-bars and eye-rings, and most are very hard to tell apart. The Least Flycatcher is the smallest and grayest of this group in the east, and it is often common near woodland edges, where it perches in the open and raps out its snappy song, chebeck!

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Feeding Behavior

Forages by watching from a perch and flying out to catch insects. Often perches on dead twigs within the middle to lower levels of trees, in fairly open spots. Catches most insects in mid-air, but also takes food (including caterpillars and spiders) from foliage while hovering.


Eggs

4, sometimes 3, occasionally 5. Creamy white. Incubation is by female only, 13-15 days. Young: Both parents bring food for nestlings. Age of young at first flight about 12-17 days; may be fed by parents for another 2-3 weeks after fledging.


Young

Both parents bring food for nestlings. Age of young at first flight about 12-17 days; may be fed by parents for another 2-3 weeks after fledging.

Diet

Mostly insects. Summer diet is mostly insects, including many small wasps, winged ants, beetles, caterpillars, midges, and flies, with smaller numbers of true bugs, grasshoppers, and others. Also eats spiders, and occasionally a few berries.


Nesting

May nest in loose colonies. Courtship behavior not well known, but may involve male chasing female through the trees. Least Flycatchers often actively chase American Redstarts out of nesting territory. Nest site is usually in deciduous sapling or small tree such as maple, birch, or ash, placed in a vertical fork in a branch. May be 2-65' above ground, but heights usually average 12-25' up, varying with habitat. Nest (evidently built by female only) is a tidy cup of grass, strips of bark, twigs, lichens, plant fibers, often bound together with webs of spiders or caterpillars; lined with fine grass, plant down, animal hair, feathers.

Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
Learn more about these drawings.

Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds

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Migration

Migrants are rare in the west, so many of those breeding in western Canada apparently migrate east and then south. In fall, adults tend to migrate south earlier than young birds. A few may winter in southern Florida.

  • 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.

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Songs and Calls

Dry, insect-like che-bec, snapped out and accented on the second syllable, and uttered incessantly through the hottest days of summer.
Audio © Lang Elliott, Bob McGuire, Kevin Colver, Martyn Stewart and others.
Learn more about this sound collection.