Great Crested Flycatcher Family Photos

Watching these great-crested flycatchers going about their business made me feel a little better about my life. They never sat still, either. Even when they paused in feeding or cleaning up after their young, they were always looking for the next insect to snatch in mid-air.

 The rhythm of this old sycamore snag was so lovely, such a perfect spot for nesting flycatchers.  This is eastern North America's only cavity-nesting flycatcher, which I suppose is because it's eastern North America's only flycatcher in the genus Myiarchus. Ash-throated and brown-crested flycatchers (also Myiarchus)  nest in cavities in the West. I noted that the flycatchers had not added a trailing snakeskin to their nest. Most GCFL nests have something trailing out of the cavity.  Popular speculation holds that the flycatchers are trying to "frighten off predators" with a snakeskin, but the first one I ever found, behind my house in Richmond, VA, had a long piece of pink attic insulation trailing out of the hole! They'll use plastic, bark...a lot of different materials, leading ornithologists to conclude that they just like to have something trailing out of the hole...I was privileged to watch that nest and even see the babies, perfect miniatures of the "Wheeps!" as we called their parents, line up on a branch outside the cavity to be fed.

North Bend's lake, less than a decade flooded, offers a paradise for cavity-nesting birds in its huge stand of dead trees, protected by several feet of water. This cuts down tremendously on snake and raccoon predation, and pretty much eliminates squirrel and mouse predation. It really is a Brigadoon for cavity-nesters.

I could tell the flycatcher babies were pretty old, both by their voices and by the size and coarseness of the insects being brought to them.

 Not all the flycatchers' prey is winged. They do some gleaning, too. This might be a fishing spider, or a wolf spider. Whatever it is, it's a big 'un. 

Imagine having something that leggy stuffed into your mouth. 

With each delivery, the flycatchers took a drop-off.

Another fecal sac about to hit the water. Look at the beautiful rufous tail of the great-crested flycatcher..

More dragonfly on the way. The flycatchers followed a predictable pattern of perching, first pausing above the nest to assess the area, then dropping directly to the cavity.

 Insert insect in slot.

Pause to consider your next move. Repeat. 

The young will leave the nest at about Day 15, and be fed for about another three weeks. The literature says in general the young are flying strongly by that day. The only other option is a splashdown, and judging from the number of bass fishermen haunting the shallows, a struggling nestling wouldn't last long. I wish this beautiful family all the best. Feed 'em up!

Great Crested Flycatchers!

And that pewee-lookin' bird with yellow below that Phoebe found for me? Get this: Pewees have wingbars and crested heads. She had it almost zeroed in. But she had found a pair of great-crested flycatchers, and they were tending a nest!

And not just any nest, but a glorious weathered branch stub in a sycamore. And it was low, and the birds were tame, as you will see. What a find!

 The pair was busy feeding young which might have been fairly well along, to judge from the prey items they were getting. I could hear them in the cavity, voicing "wheep!" calls just like their parents'. This is something unique about flycatchers. Even as little chicks, their voices don't vary much from how their parents sound. Flycatcher calls and songs are innate, not learned. So you could take a phoebe, a pewee or a great-crested flycatcher, just to name a few, raise them in complete isolation, and they'd still have a perfect song and call from the get-go. That's not true of most songbirds.  You could have knocked me over with a feather the first time I held a newly-hatched phoebe in my palm, and it said, "Chip!" just like an adult phoebe.

So this pair of great-crests is hauling in dragonflies as fast as they can. Not the first time I've wished I'd spent more time on odonates. It pains the Science Chimp greatly not to be able to identify the great crested's prey items. Please chip in if you can.

 The birds were bombproof, eyeing me but slowing down not one whit as I fired away from just below the nest.

Input, output...they carried away sizable fecal sacs of processed dragonfly with each visit.

 The original disposable diaper: the fecal sac.

 Fecal sacs are neatly encased in a mucoid coating which, if handled gently, leaves no residue on bill (or fingers, she notes).

 The bird carries them away for hygienic purposes, and to keep predators from keying in on the nest location. Birds love to drop them over water.

More great-crested family photos anon.