The western wood pewee (''Contopus sordidulus'') is a small

tyrant flycatcher The tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) are a family of passerine birds which occur throughout North and South America. They are considered the largest family of birds known to exist in the world, with more than 400 species. They are the most dive ...

. Adults are gray-olive on the upperparts with light underparts, washed with olive on the breast. They have two wing bars and a dark bill with yellow at the base of the lower mandible. This

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

is very similar in appearance to the

eastern wood pewee The eastern wood pewee (''Contopus virens'') is a small tyrant flycatcher from North America. This bird and the western wood pewee (''C. sordidulus'') were formerly considered a single species. The two species are virtually identical in appeara ...

; the two birds were formerly considered to be one species. The call of ''C. sordidulus'' is a loud buzzy ''peeer''; the song consists of three rapid descending ''tsee''s ending with a descending ''peeer''.

Description

Measurements: * Length: 5.5-6.3 in (14-16 cm) * Weight: 0.4-0.5 oz (11-14 g) * Wingspan: 10.2 in (26 cm)

Habitat and ecology

Their breeding habitat is open wooded areas in western North America. These birds migrate to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

at the end of summer. The female lays two or three

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

in an open

cup nest A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian bla ...

on a horizontal tree branch or within a tree cavity; California black oak forests are examples of suitable nesting habitat for this species of bird.C. Michael Hogan, 2008 Both parents feed the young. They wait on a perch at a middle height in a tree and fly out to catch

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s in flight (

hawking Hawking may refer to: People * Stephen Hawking (1942–2018), English theoretical physicist and cosmologist * Hawking (surname), a family name (including a list of other persons with the name) Film * ''Hawking'' (2004 film), about Stephen Ha ...

), sometimes hovering to pick insects from vegetation (

gleaning Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. It is a practice described in the Hebrew Bible that became a legall ...

References

Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Western Wood-pewee Species Account
*C. Michael Hogan (2008
''Quercus kelloggii'', Globaltwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg

Line notes

External links

Videos, photos and sounds
- Internet Bird Collection

- VIREO * ttp://www-personal.ksu.edu/~drintoul/sabbatical_images/images/western_wood_pewee_s.jpg Photo-High Resbr>Article
– ''"Utah Birds"''–(clickable Photo Gallery) {{Authority control

western wood pewee The western wood pewee (''Contopus sordidulus'') is a small tyrant flycatcher. Adults are gray-olive on the upperparts with light underparts, washed with olive on the breast. They have two wing bars and a dark bill with yellow at the base of the ...

Native birds of Western Canada Native birds of the Western United States Birds of Mexico Birds of the Sierra Madre Occidental Birds of the Sierra Madre Oriental Birds of the Sierra Madre del Sur Birds of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt Birds of Central America