Dusky Flycatcher

Dusky Flycatcher, worn spring plumage, Channel Islands, CA; April.

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About the map

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1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Similar Species
4. Sound
5. Range
6. Habitat
7. Food
8. Behavior
9. Conservation Status
10. Other Names

A dull flycatcher of western mountains, the Dusky Flycatcher is found in chaparral, streamside thickets, and open brushy areas. It is extremely difficult to tell from Hammond's Flycatcher on looks alone.

Cool Facts

• The Dusky and Hammond's flycatchers are so similar that telling them apart is a true challenge. Color and pattern do not help. Even voice, usually the most helpful character in distinguishing Empidonax flycatchers, does not help much. The best character for this species pair in the hand is the length of the outer wing feathers: Dusky has relatively short wingtips, with the outermost feather (primary 10, or "p10") being shorter or the same length as the middle one (p5); Hammond's has long wingtips with p10 being longer than p5.

Description

• Size: 13-15 cm (5-6 in)
• Wingspan: 20-23 cm (8-9 in)
• Weight: 9-11 g (0.32-0.39 ounces)

• Small flycatcher.
• Prominent eyering and wingbars.
• Back grayish.
• Underparts whitish, with some yellowish wash.

• Belly and undertail coverts whitish or yellowish.
• White eyering, sometimes thicker behind eye, sometimes extending foreward to lores.
• Upper mandible blackish; lower mandible mostly dark, with a small orangish base.

Sex Differences

Sexes alike.

Immature

Similar to adult, but wingbars broader and more buff, lower mandible mostly yellow.

Similar Species

• Closely resembles Hammond's and Gray flycatchers. Habitat, song, and sometimes range are the best ways to distinguish among these species. Gray Flycatcher's downward tail wagging is distinctive; other Empidonax flycatchers flick their tails upward.
• Gray and Hutton's vireos also are small, drab, birds with white wingbars, but the vireos have a more horizontal perching posture and narrow, hooked bills.

Sound

Song has 3 basic elements: a vaguely 2-syllabled "prll-it" rising in frequency, a rough, low-pitched "prrdrrt," and a clear, high-pitched"pseet." Call note a soft "whit."

Range

Range Map

© 2004 Cornell Lab of Ornithology

About the map

Summer Range

Breeds from northwestern British Columbia to central Montana, and southward to Baja California and nrothern New Mexico.

Winter Range

Winters in Mexico and very southern Arizona and New Mexico.

Habitat

Scrub, brushy areas, thickets, aspen groves, open coniferous forests, and mountain chaparral.

Food

Insects.

Behavior

Foraging

Takes insects on the wing; perches on dead branches and twigs between forays.

Conservation Status

Common and increasing.

Other Names

Moucherolle sombre (French)
Mosquerito Oscuro (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Sedgwick, J. A. 1993. Dusky Flycatcher (Empidonax oberholseri). In The Birds of North America, No. 78 (A. Poole and F. Gill, Eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, D.C.: The American Ornithologists¿ Union.