Guide to North American Birds
Conservation status May have declined with loss of streamside habitat in the southwest, but still locally common.
Family Tyrant Flycatchers
Habitat Low woods, mesquites, stream thickets, lower canyons. In United States, often in woods near streams through dry country. Favors stands of mesquite or cottonwood-willow groves in Arizona, native woodland of huisache, ebony, hackberry, and mesquite in southern Texas. In tropics found in a variety of semi-open habitats and dry woods.
A standing joke among birders is that this bird's name is longer than the bird itself. This tiny flycatcher occurs in thickets and streamside woods near the Mexican border, where it is easily overlooked until one learns its piping calls. It perches upright and often flips its tail like an Empidonax flycatcher, but it may feed differently, moving along twigs to glean insects from the foliage. The name 'Beardless' reflects the lack of bristles around the base of the bill (present in most of our flycatchers).

Photo Gallery

Feeding Behavior

Especially in summer, often forages in typical flycatcher style, flying out from a perch to catch insects in its bill, taking them either in the air or from foliage. Often, however, forages more like a vireo, moving slowly and taking insects from surface of twigs or leaves.


Eggs

3, sometimes 1-2. White, finely marked with dots of brown and gray, especially around the larger end. Details of incubation poorly known. Young: Probably fed by both parents. Development of young and age at first flight not well known.


Young

Probably fed by both parents. Development of young and age at first flight not well known.

Diet

Mostly insects. Diet not known in detail. Apparently feeds mostly on very small and slow-moving insects; known items include scale insects, treehoppers, beetle larvae, moth caterpillars, fly pupae, and others. Also reported to eat some seeds and berries.


Nesting

Nesting behavior is not well known. Male sings whistled song in spring and summer to defend nesting territory. Nest site is in outer branches of tree or large shrub, 4-50' above the ground, usually 10-30' up. Often placed where it will be well camouflaged: inside a clump of mistletoe, or in an old tent caterpillar web, in a tree that has many such clumps. Nest size and shape of a baseball, with an entrance high on one side; made of grasses and weeds, lined with soft plant down and feathers.

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

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

Download Our Bird Guide App

Migration

Only a short-distance migrant. In Arizona more common in summer, but small numbers winter regularly at lower elevations. A few present at all seasons in southern Texas, perhaps more numerous in summer.

  • 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 more

Songs and Calls

A thin tee-tee-tee-tee-tee, loudest in the middle. Also 3 long notes followed by a trill.
Audio © Lang Elliott, Bob McGuire, Kevin Colver, Martyn Stewart and others.
Learn more about this sound collection.

How Climate Change Will Reshape the Range of the Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

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 Near You
or

Climate threats facing the Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

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.