Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
Learn more about these drawings.
Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
Photo: Manuel Grosselet/Vireo
Tyrannus verticalis
Conservation status | Has expanded breeding range eastward and increased in numbers during 20th century. Population now stable or possibly still increasing. |
---|---|
Family | Tyrant Flycatchers |
Habitat | Semi-open country, farms, roadsides, towns. Breeds in open terrain with trees to provide nest sites; may be in farmland, groves or streamside trees in prairie country, semi-desert scrub; avoids true desert. Also in towns; where trees are lacking, will nest on artificial structures. Where ranges overlap, typically in more open country than Eastern or Cassin's kingbirds. |
Forages mostly by watching from a perch and then flying out to snap up insects in its bill. May perch low or high; may catch insects in mid-air, or may hover and then drop to the ground to catch them.
3-5, rarely up to 7. Whitish, heavily blotched with brown, lavender, and black. Incubation is mostly or entirely by female, about 18-19 days. Young: Both parents feed nestlings. Young leave nest about 16-17 days after hatching.
Both parents feed nestlings. Young leave nest about 16-17 days after hatching.
Mostly insects. Feeds on a wide variety of insects, especially wasps, bees, beetles, and grasshoppers, also flies, true bugs, caterpillars, moths, and many others. Also eats some spiders and millipedes, and regularly eats small numbers of berries and fruits.
Male defends territory by singing, giving "dawn song" incessantly at first hint of daylight. In courtship, male performs flight display, rapidly flying up and down in vertical zigzags, giving rapid sputtering calls. Nest site varies, usually in tree in vertical fork or on horizontal limb, 15-30' above ground. Also often nests on utility poles, sometimes on building ledges or towers, in empty sheds, on cliff ledges, or in abandoned nests of other birds. Nest (probably built by both sexes) is a cup of grass, weeds, twigs, plant fibers, lined with finer materials such as feathers, plant down, animal hair, bits of paper.
U.S.-Mexico Colorado River collaboration leads to 20% increase in bird abundance.
These five avian hotpots near major airport hubs make for easy mid-trip departures.
The Bureau of Land Management has released a leasing plan to sell out the heart of the Arctic Refuge to oil companies.
Let us send you the latest in bird and conservation news.
Visit your local Audubon center, join a chapter, or help save birds with your state program.