Great Crested Flycatcher
“On a final note, I had built and installed a Great-crested Flycatcher nest box which hung from a wire 18’ up in an Ash Tree.”
Through the year
Columns that mention it, by the month they were published.
Year by year
Columns that mention it each year.
In his words
Ten of the 27 passages, oldest first.
While on the topic of birds heard more often than seen (due to preferences for the upper canopy), good numbers of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks with their rich whistling song and Great Crested Flycatchers with their penetrating whee-eep whistles can be found across Cape’s leafy woodlands.
Great-crested Flycatchers and Hermit Thrushes were abundant here during the first couple weeks of the month.
Great crested Flycatchers are still making their presence known as well.
Working my way up towards the top of the property, I was pleasantly surprised to find a big congregation of warblers, including my first of season American Redstarts and a Great-crested Flycatcher.
Other flycatchers seen include Eastern Phoebe, Great-crested Flycatcher, Least Flycatcher and Eastern Wood Pewee.
Great crested Flycatchers are still making their presence known as well.
On the first day of September I heard the echoing calls of a Great-crested Flycatcher along Dyer Pond Road.
On the 8th of May my first treetop dwelling Great-crested Flycatcher was seen and heard calling along Shore Road.
Adding to the chorus at sundown are Common Yellowthroats and Yellow Warblers, American Redstarts, Veery’s, Great-crested Flycatchers, Eastern Wood-Peewees and Red-winged Blackbirds.
Great crested Flycatchers are still making their presence known as well - with loud, whistled, buzzy weeps echoing through our woods.
Show all 27 passages
A few observations over the last two weeks include Great crested Flycatchers calling at twilight deep within Robinson Woods I and a common yellowthroat female with daughter exploring the haunts surrounding a crab apple tree in our yard.
Stepping into the more interior, intact wooded sections of Cape just before dark, Great-crested Flycatchers, Eastern Wood Peewees (another forest flycatcher), Black-throated Green Warblers, Pine Warblers and Ovenbirds all sing in earnest.
Also, on July 11 within Robinson Woods I and II the following birds were observed or heard: Belted Kingfisher, Northern Flicker, Great Crested Flycatcher, Common Yellowthroat, Pine and Black-throated Green Warblers were all singing.
On the morning of September 11 following the big night I found three Northern Parulas, five American Redstarts and twelve Red-eyed Vireos along Shore Road and a single Great-crested Flycatcher along the field borders of Runaway Farm.
On a final note, I had built and installed a Great-crested Flycatcher nest box which hung from a wire 18’ up in an Ash Tree.
Noticeable waves of northbound migrants will arrive towards the end of April including Gray Catbirds, House Wrens, Eastern Kingbirds along with Least and Great-Crested Flycatchers.
The chorus here at sundown included Common Yellowthroats and Yellow Warblers, American Redstarts, Great-crested Flycatchers, Eastern Wood-Peewees and Red-winged Blackbirds.
Other notes from my field journal include on June 29 before sunset along the margins of the field in Robinson Woods III, a Great-horned Owl was spotted being scolded by two Great-crested Flycatchers and on June 30 along the woodland paths in Gull Crest two fledgling American Woodcocks were testing their wings.
Still conspicuously calling in late July were Hermit Thrushes, Eastern Wood-pewees, Great-crested Flycatchers, Eastern Kingbirds, Red-eyed Vireos, Gray Catbirds and Robins.
The chorus at sundown includes Common Yellowthroats and Yellow Warblers, American Redstarts, Great-crested Flycatchers, Eastern Wood-Peewees and Red-winged Blackbirds.
I was also treated to the songs of Veery’s, Hermit Thrushes, Great-crested Flycatchers, Cedar Waxwings and a single and Wood Thrush and Least Flycatcher.
And on January 3 I finally got around to retrieving and cleaning out the Great-crested Flycatcher Box that I have set up for the last three summers in a boggy area on my property.
On the morning of May 11 while my son and I worked in the garden three Great-crested Flycatchers called loudly above us while a boisterous House Wren exhibited its ‘rush-and-jumble song’ within the surrounding tangles.
During the first week of June within the dark forest interior of Robinson Woods I was treated to a dusk chorus of Ovenbirds performing flight songs along with Eastern Wood Peewees and Squawking Great-crested Flycatchers.
And on May 8 my youngest son and I hung our Great-crested Flycatcher box in a boggy area of our property.
And on a bird related note, on January 26 my sons and I dragged a ladder through the snowdrifts to the boggy corner of our property to check the Great Crested Flycatcher box I’d hung the previous spring but never gotten around to inspecting.
And when I’m down in the bog, the Great Crested Flycatcher calling closest to me is the same bird, albeit yet to be named, who will defend our patch of wet woods until late September.