How to Identify aLeast Flycatcher
Empidonax minimus · 4.7–5.5 in (12–14 cm)
Male vs. female
Male
Grayish-olive above, whitish below with a dusky chest wash, a bold white eye-ring and two white wingbars. Sexes look alike.
Female
Identical to the male in the field.
Male photo: User:Mdf / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Second photo: TonyCastro / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Field marks
- Bold complete white eye-ring
- Two crisp white wingbars
- Short wings and a small bill for an Empidonax
- Flicks wings and tail constantly
Similar species
What it sounds like
A dry, emphatic, endlessly repeated "che-BEK" with the accent on the second note.
Behaviour that gives it away
Sings its two-note phrase incessantly — over a thousand times an hour at the peak of the season.
Habitat & range
Open deciduous and mixed woodland, orchards and forest edges.
When you'll see it
Depending on where in northern, eastern and central North America you are, it is a summer visitor that arrives to breed and a passage migrant, seen mainly in spring and autumn.
What it eats
Small insects caught on short sallies from a perch.
Did you know?
One male was recorded singing its "che-BEK" more than 1,200 times in a single hour.
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