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Great Kiskadee | Pitangus sulphuratus
Grote kiskadie | Bienteveo Común
The Great Kiskadee is one of the largest tyrant flycatchers: heavy-bodied, with a black-and-white head pattern, rufous wings and yellow underparts. In the United States it occurs only in South Texas, where it has pushed north since the early twentieth century. Its range continues all the way to Argentina.
Voice
The name is the call: a loud, emphatic three-syllable kis-ka-dee, stressed on the first and last syllable. It calls from an open perch, often in duet with its mate, and is usually heard before it is seen. There is also a drawn-out harsh kreeah and a rapid rattle in alarm. The same call gives the bird its names in other languages: bem-te-vi in Brazil, bien-te-veo in Spanish, cristofué in Venezuela.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Brejo do tricolino oliváceo - Campestre de Goiás, Brazil · xeno-canto
Identification
A large, short-tailed flycatcher with a big square head and a short, heavy black bill; the silhouette suggests a kingfisher. The head is black with a broad white eyebrow meeting in a white band behind the crown, and a white throat; between the black crown feathers lies a usually concealed yellow crown patch. The upperparts are brown, and the wings and tail have rufous edges that show as a warm flash in flight. The underparts are deep yellow. The sexes look alike.
Confusion species
Social Flycatcher is considerably smaller, has a much smaller bill and lacks the rufous in wing and tail; its call is a high nasal chatter rather than a three-syllable kis-ka-dee. Boat-billed Flycatcher has virtually the same plumage as Great Kiskadee, but a broader, deeper, laterally flattened bill profile, less rufous in the wing and a hoarse, frog-like eeah; that species is hard on sight alone and is settled in practice on bill shape and voice. Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher is streaked on breast and back rather than plain.
Habitat
Open woodland and edge near water: river banks, old meanders and resacas, marsh edges and mangrove. The species holds up in landscapes shaped by people and in South Texas nests in cemeteries, residential yards and alleyways as well. It forages from an open branch over the water. The diet is broad: insects taken in flight, but also rodents, lizards, fruit, tadpoles, freshwater snails and fish — for which it plunges into shallow water, unusual in a passerine.
Where the bird is most often found, arranged by the USNVC — the vegetation classification of the United States and Canada — and CMECS for sea and coast.
Range and movements
Resident across nearly the whole range. In Texas it was confined to the southernmost counties in the early twentieth century; it now breeds from the Rio Grande west to Del Rio and north beyond the Nueces, with the highest numbers in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and in Kenedy, Brooks, Kleberg and Jim Wells counties. From there the range runs through all of Mexico, Central America and South America to Argentina. About 200 birds were released on Bermuda in 1957, where the species persists; Tobago followed around 1970.
- Resident
- Winter
- Passage
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
Where and when to look
Findable year-round along the water at Santa Ana or Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park; go by the call, which carries for hundreds of metres. On a silent bird, check the bill profile to rule out Boat-billed Flycatcher — seen from the side the kiskadee's bill is slender and straight, the Boat-billed's much deeper with a curved culmen; seen from below, the Boat-billed's bill is also much broader.
Conservation
The IUCN lists the species as Least Concern (LC). The range is among the largest of any tyrant flycatcher in the Western Hemisphere, and in Texas the bird has gone from rare visitor to common breeder. Its adaptability in towns and cities and its broad diet contribute to that. There is no trapping pressure for the cage-bird trade, since the species is difficult to keep in captivity.
Scientific name
Pitangus sulphuratus | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Lanius sulphuratus; because it was later moved to another genus, author and year stand in parentheses. The genus name Pitangus goes back to pitanguá-guaçu, a Tupi word for large flycatchers. The species name sulphuratus is Latin for 'sulphur-coloured', after the yellow underparts. The specimen described came from Cayenne. The name kiskadee renders the call.