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Willow Flycatcher | Empidonax traillii
Wilgenfeetiran | Mosquero saucero
The Willow Flycatcher is an Empidonax of shrubby growth near water that breeds in North America. In the guide area it is a passage migrant and winters from southern Mexico to Panama, mainly on the Pacific slope. In the field it can only be reliably separated from Alder Flycatcher by song and call.
Voice
The call is a dry whit. The song is a sneezy FITZ-bew, also heard on the wintering grounds.
Recording: Greg Irving — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15 cm. Upperparts brownish olive, head with at most a faint, narrow pale eye-ring. Wings dark with two whitish to pale ochre wing bars and a fairly long primary projection. Throat white, breast washed greyish brown, belly pale yellow. Lower mandible entirely pale. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Alder Flycatcher Empidonax alnorum is on average slightly greener, with a slightly clearer eye-ring, but can only be separated with certainty by voice; in the guide area it is a passage migrant and does not winter. White-throated Flycatcher Empidonax albigularis is smaller and browner, with cinnamon wing bars. Least Flycatcher Empidonax minimus is smaller and greyer, with a conspicuous eye-ring. Acadian Flycatcher Empidonax virescens is greener and stays inside the forest.
Habitat
In winter in scrub along rivers, marsh edges, lagoons and wet pastures with shrubs, also in rank growth in open country, mainly in the lowlands. On migration also in other open, shrubby vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Migrates through much of Mexico and Central America. Winters from southern Mexico to Panama, mainly on the Pacific slope. Outside the guide area it breeds over much of the United States and southern Canada and also winters in north-western South America.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In winter best found in rank vegetation along water on the Pacific slope, where birds often give their FITZ-bew even at that season.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The south-western subspecies extimus has declined sharply in the United States through the loss of riparian vegetation.
Scientific name
Empidonax traillii | (Audubon, 1828)
Audubon described the species in 1828 as Muscicapa traillii; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Empidonax was introduced in 1855 by Cabanis. Empidonax is Greek, from empis 'gnat' and anax 'master': 'gnat-king', after its insect hunting. traillii honours the Scottish physician and zoologist Thomas Stewart Traill (1781–1862), a friend of Audubon. The specimen the first description was based on came from along the Arkansas River (USA).