Saturday, May 25, 2013

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Olive-sided Flycatcher
 The olive-sided flycatcher is a tyrant flycatcher that breeds primarily in the coniferous forests of North America. Their breeding territory consists of most of Alaska and Canada, plus the Rocky Mountain and Appalachian Mountain regions. They winter as far south as central South America. Since they have such a long migration they usually arrive at the breeding territory later then other species and leave earlier. This pic was taken at the beginning of September at the Carpenter Nature Center. Since we do not have the proper breeding habitat for this species, except in the north east corner of the state, I assume that this bird was migrating south and stopped for a lunch break. Olive sided flycatchers almost exclusively eat flying insects. They typically find a perch that is in the open and wait to ambush an insect as they fly by. I watched this one catch and eat several bees, which are one of their main prey species. They also eat wasps, flying ants, moths, grasshoppers and dragonflies.



5 comments:

Anni said...

That's cool that you managed to capture the flycatcher with an insect like that!!

Oh and the wood duck below?-------looks absolutely gorgeous.

Chris Twyman and Angela said...

Wow,we thought your images could not get better but we were wrong. It is amazing how the colours work so beautifully.

HansHB said...

Lovely photos!

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful capture!

lorik said...

What a great combination of orange and black with that brilliant purple. Fantastic composition.
Thanks for sharing it on Mandarin Orange Monday:)