Eastern Kingbird

Tyrannus tyrannus

Order PASSERIFORMES - Family TYRANNIDAE - Subfamily Tyranninae

Menu

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

A large dark flycatcher of fields and other open areas, the Eastern Kingbird is a common and widespread species. Despite its name, its range extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.

Cool Facts

• The Eastern Kingbird is highly aggressive toward nest predators and larger birds. Hawks and crows are attacked regularly. A kingbird was observed to knock a Blue Jay out of a tree and cause it to hide under bush to escape the attack.

• During the summer the Eastern Kingbird eats mostly flying insects and maintains a breeding territory that it defends vigorously against all other kingbirds. In the winter along the Amazon, however, it has a completely different lifestyle: it travels in flocks and eats fruit.

• Parent Eastern Kingbirds feed their young for about seven weeks. Because of this relatively long period of dependence, a pair generally raises only one brood of young per nesting season.

Description

• Size: 19-23 cm (7-9 in)
• Wingspan: 33-38 cm (13-15 in)
• Weight: 33-55 g (1.16-1.94 ounces)

• Medium-sized songbird.
• Head and back dark.
• Throat, chest, and belly white.
• White tip to dark tail.

• Head dark black and slightly crested.
• Back and wings grayer.
• Faint grayish band on chest.
• A small crown patch of red, orange, or yellow feathers is usually concealed.
• Bill black.
• Feeds from high perches, such as top of dead tree, fence post, or utility wire.
• Often returns to same perch after flight to catch flying prey.

Sex Differences

Sexes alike in plumage. Male tends to sit more upright and to keep its crown feathers in a slight crest. Female can raise her crest, but tends to keep her head more rounded and to sit more horizontally on a perch.

Immature

Juvenile similar to adult, but shows buffy edges to wing feathers and a narrower white tip to tail. Also lacks the concealed crown patch.

Similar Species

• Gray Kingbird is similar, but shows a dark mask on its otherwise lighter head, is paler gray on the back, and lacks the white tail tip.
• Thick-billed Kingbird is brownish gray on the back and lacks the white tail tip.
• Eastern Phoebe is smaller, is paler gray on the back and dirtier white or yellowish underneath, has a proportionately longer tail that lacks a white tip, and constantly wags its tail.

Sound

Song a series of high-pitched sputtering notes followed by a downslurred buzzy "zeer." "Ti-t-t-t-ti-zeer." Also utters the "zeer's alone.

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds from western Northwest Territories and eastern and southern British Columbia eastward across Canada, across all of the eastern United States, and southward in the western states to northern Nevada, northern New Mexico, and southern Texas.

Winter Range

Winters in South America.

Habitat

• Breeds in open environments with scattered perches, such as fields, orchards, shelterbelts, and forest edges. Uses urban parks and golf courses.
• Winters in river- and lake-edge habitats and canopy of tropical forests.

Food

Flying insects, fruits especially in winter.

Behavior

Foraging

Captures most prey by aerial hawking from an elevated perch. Also grabs insects off vegetation with its bill.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Nest an open cup of twigs, roots, dry weed stems, and strips of bark lined with plant down, fine rootlets, and hair. Nest placed on horizontal limb in tree, in crotch of tree limb, or on top of snag or fence post.

Egg Description

Creamy white with heavy dark spots, concentrated around large end.

Clutch Size

2-5 eggs.

Condition at Hatching

Helpless and with sparse down.

Conservation Status

Widespread and common, but populations may be decreasing.

Other Names

Tyran tritri (French)
Pitirre americano, Tirano viajero (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Murphy, M. T. 1996. Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus). In The Birds of North America, No. 253 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.