Western wood pewee

Western wood pewee
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Tyrannidae
Genus:	Contopus
Species:	C. sordidulus
Binomial name
Contopus sordidulus (Sclater, 1859)

The western wood pewee (Contopus sordidulus) is a small tyrant flycatcher. Adults are gray-olive on the upperparts^[2] 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 is very similar in appearance to the eastern wood pewee; 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 tsees ending with a descending peeer.

Habitat and ecology

Their breeding habitat is open wooded areas in western North America. These birds migrate to South America at the end of summer. The female lays two or three eggs in an open cup nest 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.^[3] Both parents feed the young.

They wait on a perch at a middle height in a tree and fly out to catch insects in flight (hawking), sometimes hovering to pick insects from vegetation (gleaning).

References

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

Line notes

1. BirdLife International (2012). "Contopus sordidulus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
2. Cornell Lab of Ornithology
3. C. Michael Hogan, 2008

External links

• Videos, photos and sounds - Internet Bird Collection
• Photos - VIREO
• Photo-High Res; Article – "Utah Birds"–(clickable Photo Gallery)