Great crested flycatcher is busy catching insects
No sooner had I stepped outside at dawn to pick up the newspaper than a migratory bird’s singular song rang out from an oak tree across the street.
The song wasn’t as melodic as the tunes of songbirds like the Carolina wren or northern cardinal; rather, it was a simple, loudly whistled melody that sounded like a quick repetition of the words “weeeUP-weeeeER” ringing out in the neighborhood like a sharp bell.
It was the dawn song of a great crested flycatcher.
The bird had migrated from its winter home in southern Mexico or Central America to breed in my neighborhood. The great crested flycatcher is probably singing at dawn in your neighborhood, too, as it’s fairly common among Houston’s tree-lined residences.
Don’t worry about getting up at dawn to hear it. Periodically during the day, the bird will utter a call that sounds like “WEEER-UP,” as though a
yelled note from its dawn song. I recently heard the bird’s call coming from the oak-lined street in Montrose, where a friend lives.
I heard it, but didn’t see it. To get a glimpse of the bird means waiting patiently near a tree canopy from whence the call emanates. A rustle of leaves might unveil its lemon-yellow belly or the erected crest on an olive-brown head as the bird peers out above a cluster of leaves.
The best view comes when the bird perches upright on an outer tree limb in full sunlight to reveal reddish color on the wing edges and beneath the tail. It might then sally from the perch to snatch a wasp with an audible snap of its straight thick beak.
Great crested flycatchers breed throughout the eastern half of the state and are members of the Myiarchus genus of migratory birds that includes ash-throated flycatchers breeding in the western half of the state and brown-crested flycatchers breeding in the Rio Grande Valley.
The name Myiarchus derives from a Greek word roughly meaning “fly ruler” but might just as well imply “fly marauder.” The great crested flycatcher, for example, will sneak among the tree limbs, then suddenly launch to chomp down on butterflies, dragonflies, bees, wasps and other flying insects.
The bird comfortably breeds in our neighborhoods, no doubt because our tree-lined streets border lawns and gardens that are lined with insects.
And remember, if we can’t always eye the shrill-sounding bird among residential trees, neither can the insects.