All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Eastern Phoebe
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Eastern Phoebe | Sayornis phoebe
Phoebe | Mosquero fibí
The Eastern Phoebe is a medium-sized, greyish-brown tyrant flycatcher without striking markings that almost constantly pumps its tail. It breeds in eastern North America and winters among other places in eastern Mexico, often near water. It also breeds locally in north-eastern Mexico.
Voice
The call is a sharp chip. The song, rarely heard in winter, is a hoarse fee-bee, which gave the species its name.
Recording: Jim Berry — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
16–17 cm, with a thin, all-black bill. Upperparts greyish-brown, head darker and contrasting with the back. No eye-ring. Wings dark with faint pale wing-bars. Underparts whitish with a greyish wash on the sides of the breast; in autumn and winter often a pale yellow tinge on the belly. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Western Wood Pewee Contopus sordidulus and Eastern Wood Pewee Contopus virens do not pump their tails, have longer wings, clearer wing-bars and a pale lower mandible. Empidonax flycatchers are smaller, with an eye-ring and distinct wing-bars. Say's Phoebe Sayornis saya has a cinnamon belly, and Black Phoebe Sayornis nigricans is black with a white belly.
Habitat
In winter semi-open country with trees and shrubs, often near water: riparian woodland, stream valleys, pasture with trees, parks, gardens and forest edges, from the lowlands into the mountains. It pumps its tail from a low perch and catches insects in short sallies; in winter it also eats berries. It nests on a ledge under a bridge, an overhang or in a building.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds in central and eastern Canada and the eastern United States, and locally in north-eastern Mexico. Winters in the south-eastern United States and in eastern Mexico, south to about Veracruz; rare further south.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In winter fairly common along streams and rivers in north-eastern and eastern Mexico; the constant tail-pumping and dark head are the best features.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common and widespread; benefits from bridges and buildings as nest sites.
Scientific name
Sayornis phoebe | (Latham, 1790)
Latham described the species in 1790 as [Muscicapa] Phoebe; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Sayornis was introduced in 1854 by Bonaparte. Sayornis honours the American naturalist Thomas Say (1787–1834), via Bonaparte's Muscicapa saya, with Greek ornis 'bird': 'Say's bird'. phoebe is another name for the moon goddess Diana, but probably mainly imitates the 'fee-bee' call. The specimen the first description was based on came from New York.