Great Crested Flycatcher on a Midsummer Day
When I opened a window this morning, the first thing I heard was the bright Whreep! of a Great Crested Flycatcher. A very fine bird to begin this midsummer day. It continued to call for several more minutes, Whreep calls followed by a burst of shorter whistles tumbled together in a bubbly way, and then a lower, more burry Breet!
A Tufted Titmouse and a Northern Cardinal also sang, and a White-breasted Nuthatch trailed a long string of short nasal calls. An Acadian Flycatcher called a short, crisp tee-whit, tee-whit.
The warm night had been filled with the raucous songs of katydids, and bright with very clear and strong moonlight, now several days past the full moon, but still lovely moon-white light that turned the woods into a black and white filigree of patterns from the trees.
With morning, the katydids faded away and the songs of cicadas soon became loud all around. A Carolina Wren sang from our deck rail, a golden, sunny-bright song, and was answered by another and another and another Carolina Wren. American Crows cawed as they flew overhead. And a Summer Tanager sang its lilting refrain from somewhere among a dense tangle of trees on the east side of the yard. A Downy Woodpecker whinnied. An Eastern Bluebird mumbled a low, blurry song, and then a brilliant male bluebird flew across the yard and sat on a nearby very low branch of a white oak tree. A female bluebird, meanwhile, sat with her head coming out of a nest box a few yards away. They seem to be starting another nest, despite the extreme summer heat.
But the Great Crested Flycatcher may be the perfect bird of the day for this midpoint of the summer. It’s a large, handsome bird with a big, crested head, a lemon-yellow belly, and a long, expressive cinnamon-colored tail, and wings with touches of cinnamon. Its flashy behavior and colors make it a joy to watch. It often may sit in clear view in the top of a tree and almost seem to pose there, showing off its regal appearance. And then it moves with a flourish to hunt from high branches, capturing flying insects in the air, or swooping down to catch beetles, grasshoppers, crickets and spiders and other prey from the surface of leaves or even from the ground.
Great Crested Flycatchers are considered common in all of the eastern part of the U.S. in the summer. They seem to prefer patchy woodlands and second-growth forests, and especially edges of woodlands with a mix of fields or clearings – like the habitat around our neighborhood here. They are not so often found in denser forests, but do need dead or dying trees for nesting cavities.