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Eastern
Wood-Pewee
Contopus virens
Contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler
[Published in 1942:
Smithsonian Institution United States National Museum Bulletin
179: 266-279]
Spring.--The long spring migration
is drawing to a close. The hardy adventurers of March have settled
here in New England for the summer or have passed farther
northward. In April the hordes of sparrows swept through the
country, and early in May the orioles came back to us from South
America. The rush of warblers has mainly passed now, but the last
of the blackpolls are marching through, and the northern thrushes,
the olive back and the gray cheek, the rear guard of the
migration, are hiding in the shadows.
It is at this time of the year, when spring is in full bloom,
when the countryside is brilliant green and the forest leaves are
almost summer size, that the wood pewee calmly takes his place
among the big trees of our woodlands, the shade trees of our
streets, and, if the trees be tall, even in our gardens. His slow,
sweet, quiet, three-note song tells us that he is here, hidden
among the leaves, although the bird remains for the most part so
high up in the thick foliage that we may not catch a glimpse of
him for weeks unless we look sharply--not perhaps until the young
are fledged and descend from their lofty nest and begin to wander
about with their parents.
All the way on its journey from the south, the wood pewee has
loitered behind the hurrying migrants, leisurely delaying its
homecoming, and now, at last on its breeding ground, it finds many
of its neighbors with broods already hatched, engaged with the
turmoils of parenthood.
Courtship.--The wood pewee seems
to have no well-marked ritual in its courtship behavior. He does
indeed break away from his characteristic calm and becomes more
animated during the short nuptial season, flying about more
rapidly than usual and engaging in lively, weaving chases among
the branches. Such pursuits, however, apparently constitute, as is
the case with many of the smaller birds, the only courtship
display. Audubon (1840) says: "During the love season, it
often flies, with a vibratory motion of the wings, so very slowly
that one might suppose it about to poise itself in the air. On
such occasions its notes are guttural, and are continued for
several seconds as a low twitter."
Dr. Samuel S. Dickey has contributed to Mr. Bent, in careful,
extensive notes, the result of his long study of the wood pewee.
These notes will be quoted repeatedly hereinafter. Of courtship he
writes: "During the mating period they are unusually
vivacious. They tweek their wings and agitate their tails and
spring prettily forward. It is no uncommon sight to see two males
in combat. They draw up to each other, hover an instant in a
clearing, and then in close contact they fall downward together,
but before they reach the ground they usually swerve to one side.
With squeaking outcries they continue the chase until one bird,
tiring of the contest, takes shelter in some distant tree. When a
male has found a female to his liking, he pursues her in and out
of the avenues between the trees. She will then sometimes
disappear into the midst of the body of a tree and leave him
hovering in bewilderment close by."
Speaking of the period of courtship, Dr. Thomas S. Roberts
(1932) says: "The male Wood Pewee has, besides the usual pee-a-wee,
a rapid chattering utterance, delivered as he pursues the female
among and over the tree-tops; also, at such times, a few full,
sweet notes, almost as though he were about to warble a song and
suggesting a phrase from that of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. This
was heard on one occasion (June 20) just at sundown as a pair of
Pewees that had a nest near by were indulging in most ardent
expressions of devotion, accompanied by aerial evolutions so rapid
as to make it difficult to follow them with the eye."
Nesting.--The nest of the wood
pewee is a dainty little structure, harmonizing so closely with
the surroundings that our eye may easily pass along the limb to
which the nest is bound without detecting it. The nest seems tiny
for the size of the bird, sits close to the branch--the bottom
thin, the walls low and thick--and the outside is sheathed with
bits of lichen.
The site of the nest is generally on a small limb, often dead
and patched with lichens, commonly at a height of about 20 feet,
in or near a level fork well out from the trunk of the tree.
Bendire (1895) states that the bird "shows a decided
preference for open, mixed woods, free from underbrush, and
frequents the edge of such as border on fields, clearings, etc.,
either in dry or moist situations," and that "an average
and typical nest of the Wood Pewee measures 2 3/4 inches in outer
diameter by 1 3/4 inches in depth; the inner cup is about 1 3/4
inches wide by 1 1/4 inches deep."
Arthur C. Bent writes in his notes: "Most of the nests
that I have seen have been on horizontal, lichen-covered limbs of
old apple trees in orchards, or on dead limbs of pitch pines in
the Plymouth woods." The Plymouth woods is a dry, tangled
wilderness, extending over many square miles in southeastern
Massachusetts, overgrown with pitch pines and scrub oak and
interspersed with small ponds.
Dickey, whose investigations were largely conducted in
Pennsylvania, gives a long list of trees in which he has found
wood pewees' nests. It includes oaks (white, red, and black),
sugar maple, black walnut, yellow locust, elm, apple, and pear,
generally in specimens of large growth. He has found a nest in a
flowering dogwood tree only 8 feet above ground. He says that
willows are used rarely, but he speaks of one nest in a partly
dead willow tree five feet out from the main stem. Another nest
was "in a stalwart sycamore, six feet through at the butt, in
a horizontal fork 45 feet aloft and 18 feet out from the main
bole."
Ira N. Gabrielson (1922) describes a nest "saddled on a
long straight limb of an elm perhaps fifteen feet from the ground
and about the same distance from the trunk of the tree. The only
foliage on this branch was a spreading spray of leaves several
feet beyond the nest. One would think that a nest so located would
be easily discovered but such was not the case. While
conspicuously located it was cunningly woven onto the branch and
so thoroughly covered with lichens that I could scarcely believe
it was a nest even after seeing the bird alight upon it. From
below it looked to be simply a lichen-covered knot or a small
fungus growth upon the limb and only after we were on a level with
it did it seem at all conspicuous."
A. Dawes DuBois, describing in his notes a deserted nest, says:
"Its inner lining consisted chiefly of stiff, curved,
two-branched, wirelike stems resembling the fruit stems of the
basswood. tree--some of them 2 inches long. There were about 70 of
these. There were also long, hairlike stems of plant fibers, other
coarser stems, shreds of weed bark, some 9 inches long, a piece of
spider cocoon, and a 3-inch piece of string. At one spot, near the
center, the branch itself served as the bottom of the nest. The
body of the structure was built of similar but coarser materials.
No hair was used in this nest. The outside was well covered with
lichens, firmly held in place by cocoon silk."
DuBois also stresses the point that, owing to the situation of
the wood pewee's nest--i. e., directly on the bark of a horizontal
limb and often not supported in a crotch--the nest must be
fastened to the bark. This necessary anchorage is secured by the
bird while building who "repeatedly wipes her bill from side
to side along the limb, making the materials adhere to the
bark."
Bendire (1895) says: "The inner cup of the nest is usually
lined with finer materials of the same kind, and occasionally with
a little wool, down of plants, a few horse hairs, and bits of
thread," and he examined "a unique nest of this species,
taken. . .from a horizontal limb of an apple tree, about 8 feet
from the ground. . . . This nest, which is well preserved, is
exteriorly composed entirely of wool. . . . It is very sparingly
lined with fine grass tops and a few horse hairs, while a single
well-preserved apple leaf lies perfectly flat and exactly in the
center and bottom of the nest."
Ora W. Knight (1908) reports that the male "does not seem
to do any active work, either at nest building or assisting in
incubation, but I have however seen him feed the female more or
less frequently while she was sitting."
The wood pewee appears to become attached to a group of trees
and returns sometimes year after year to build its nest on the
same branch. Katie Myra Roads (1931) gives an instance of this
habit when she reports: "For thirty-five years a Wood
Pewee's. . .nest has been placed in the same fork of an elm tree
about forty feet from the ground.
Eggs.--Major Bendire (1895) says:
"From two to four eggs are laid to a set, generally three,
and sets of four I consider rare." He describes them as
follows:
The eggs of the Wood Pewee vary in shape from ovate to short
or rounded ovate; the shell is close-grained and without gloss.
The ground color varies from a pale milky white to a rich cream
color, and the markings, which vary considerably in size and
number in different sets, are usually disposed in the shape of an
irregular wreath around the larger end of the egg, and consist of
blotches and minute specks of claret brown, chestnut, vinaceous
rufous, heliotrope, purple, and lavender. In some specimens the
darker, in others the lighter shades predominate. In very rare
instances only are the markings found on the smaller end of the
egg.
The average measurements of seventy-two eggs in the United
States National Museum collection is 18.24 by 13.65 millimeters,
or about 0.72 by 0.54 inch. The largest egg of the series measures
20.07 by 13.97 millimeters, or 0.79 by 0.55 inch; the smallest,
16.51 by 12.95 millimeters, or 0.65 by 0.51 inch.
Young.--The young pewees, generally
three in a brood, grow rapidly and soon overfill their little
nest. However, in color they match the surrounding bark and
lichens so closely that they remain inconspicuous even when,
almost ready to fly, the three of them are in plain sight from
below, crowded together on a nest that was none too big to
accommodate their parent.
Dickey indicates how the young birds prevent themselves from
falling out of the nest. "When I attempted to take them from
the nest," he says, "they resisted with more strength
than one would have supposed they possessed. They grasped the
lining of the nest with their claws and pulled it out as I lifted
them up."
Burns (1915) gives the incubation
period as 12 to 13 days, Bendire (1895) as "about twelve
days," and Dickey says: "The eggs were incubated for a
period of exactly thirteen days in six nests I had under
observation."
A. Dawes DuBois gives in his notes an account of the nest life
in a family he watched closely. He says: "On the day of
hatching, the single nestling was only a bit of animated fuzz, but
by the evening of the next day it had apparently grown to twice
its original size--an odd little creature with tufts of whitish
gray down on its back and head. When the nestling was four or five
days old it was brooded only part of the time. The feeding was
done very quickly. The parent brought what appeared to be a small
moth; the nestling's head went up, instantly the food went in, the
head dropped back, and the parent brooded, all in a second or two
without any ceremony. Two days later the nestling was well
feathered. Occasionally it stretched and flapped its wings. While
being fed it never uttered any sound that was audible to me. The
feeding continued to be a very matter-of-fact, well-regulated
business; the young one opened its mouth only at the auspicious
moment, and the food was quickly gulped down. Excreta were
swallowed until the nestling was four or five days old; later they
were carried away and discarded.
"During its thirteenth and fourteenth day the nestling was
occupied chiefly in stretching up on the edge of the nest,
flapping its wings, looking down at the ground or out through the
trees, or watching a butterfly if one came near. It fluttered,
stretched, dozed, and took nourishment by turns. Occasionally it
almost toppled from the edge of the nest but seemed to have no
thought of taking a walk on the branch. But the next morning the
youngster ventured out to a distance of about 2 feet, and later,
purposely dislodged by a parent, I thought, it fluttered to the
ground. From here it struck out on its own account, almost
reaching the eaves of a low building 30 yards down the slope
before again fluttering to the ground."
Bendire (1895) says: "The young leave the nest in about
sixteen days, and are cared for by both parents." Knight
(1908) gives the period of nest life as "about eighteen days
after hatching." Mr. DuBois's bird left on its fifteenth day.
Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) states: "The young, when
first out of the nest, sit huddled together in a row, waiting to
be fed and voicing their impatience in a plaintive squeak,
like a mouse in distress."
Plumages.--[AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the
early stages of the juvenal plumage the feathers are soft, fluffy,
and blended, but they appear firmer in September with the
beginning of the postjuvenal molt. In the juvenal plumage the
upper parts are "olive-brown" but much darker on the
pileum, the feathers of the crown and rump being narrowly edged
with buffy brown; sometimes the entire upper parts have these
faint edgings, and sometimes the feathers of the nape are faintly
edged with ashy gray; the median and greater wing coverts are
tipped with "light ochraceous-buff," forming two
distinct wing bands; the central and posterior under parts are
"pale primrose yellow," abruptly defined against the
"olive-gray" sides of the throat and flanks, with an
indistinct pectoral band of olive-gray.
A postjuvenal molt, probably incomplete, begins early in
September and evidently is not wholly finished before the birds go
south. Whether the wings and tail are molted at this time or later
in fall or winter does not seem to be known. Dr. Dwight (1900)
says that the first winter plumage "resembles closely the
previous dress, but grayish instead of brownish tinged above, the
edgings and collar lost and the new wing-bands grayish."
Apparently young birds become practically adult during their
first winter or the following spring, perhaps by a complete or
partial prenuptial molt.
Adults have a complete postnuptial molt, beginning late in
August or in September but chiefly accomplished after the birds
have migrated. They may have a partial prenuptial molt before they
come north, but we have no specimens to show it.]
Food.--Waldo L. McAtee (1926) states:
The food of the Wood Pewee is almost exclusively derived
from the animal kingdom, only a little more than one per cent of
it being vegetable. This consists almost entirely of wild fruits
such as those of elder, blackberry, dogwood and pokeberry. Spiders
and millipeds are eaten regularly but in small quantities,
comprising only a little over two per cent of the whole
subsistence. Besides the items mentioned the remainder of the food
of the Wood Pewee consists entirely of insects. The more important
groups are flies (about 30 per cent of the total food),
hymenoptera (28 per cent), beetles (14 per cent), lepidoptera (12
per cent), bugs (6 per cent), and grasshoppers (3 per cent). Among
forest pests consumed by the Wood Pewee are carpenter ants,
tussock and gipsy moths, and cankerworms, click beetles, leaf
chafers, adults of both flat-headed and round-headed wood borers,
leaf beetles, nut weevils, bark beetles, and tree hoppers. . . .
The Wood Pewee consumes also various useful insects, as parasitic
wasps, ladybird beetles, and certain others, but on the whole is a
very good friend of the wood lot.
F. E. L. Beal (1912), basing his conclusions "upon the
examination of 359 stomachs taken in 20 States of the Union, the
District of Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova
Scotia," says in his summary:
The one point most open for criticism in the food of the
wood pewee is that it eats too many parasitic Hymenoptera. There
is no doubt that all birds which prey upon Hymenoptera at all
destroy some of the useful species, but the proportion in the food
of this bird is greater than in other birds whose food has been
investigated. As these insects are for the most part smaller than
the more common wasps and bees, it would seem natural that they
should be preyed upon most by the smaller flycatchers, which very
likely accounts for the fact that the wood pewee eats more of them
than the kingbirds. But even so the bird does far more good than
harm. The loss of the useful Hymenoptera can be condoned when it
is remembered that with them the bird takes so many harmful or
annoying species.
Walter Bradford Barrows (1912) says: "The food consists
very largely of insects taken on the wing, yet it not infrequently
hovers before a twig or leaf and snaps up small insects which
appear to be stationary, sometimes descending to the grass for
this purpose. . . . In Nebraska Professor Aughey found seven
grasshoppers and many other insects in the single specimen which
he examined."
As we watch a wood pewee feeding--dashing out from its perch
repeatedly, often among the interstices of forest trees where the
light is not over strong--we are impressed by the large number of
very small insects it must capture. These are so small that we do
not always catch sight of them in the air, but we may infer their
number from the bird's actions, by hearing the click of its bill
as it snaps them up, or attempts to do so, and sometimes by seeing
more than one insect in the bird's beak after it alights. Forbush
(1907) noticed this habit and remarks: "It usually perches on
dead branches at some height from the ground, and flies out to
some distance, taking one or many insects at each sally."
Dickey in his manuscript states that "the birds flit out
from woodland margins to feed in clearings and over corn, wheat
and oat fields. They are prone, too, to hover beside the webs of
spiders and extract flies that have been snared, and they make
repeated trips out over marsh-land and return to the woods, their
beaks filled with appendages of insects."
That the food of the wood pewee is not restricted to small
insects is shown by A. Dawes DuBois, who reports that he saw a
parent bird come to a nest "with a good-sized butterfly, a
red admiral, which the young bird swallowed, wings and all."
Bendire (1895) quotes George A. Seagle, superintendent of the
Wytheville (Va.) Fish Commission station, who stated: "This
little bird has frequently been seen to catch young trout from the
ponds soon after they had been transferred from the hatching
house."
Behavior.--The wood pewee is an
obscurely marked, smallish flycatcher, only slightly larger than
the little birds that make up the genus Empidonax. Wilson
(1831) says: "It loves to sit on the high dead branches, amid
the gloom of the woods." In such surroundings it is not
easily seen, for its plumage appears in the field as brownish gray
above and grayish white below, colors that harmonize with the
filtered light of the forest. In fact, were it not for its voice,
we should rarely notice the bird even when it is darting about,
high overhead in its leafy retreat. It is a seclusive, apparently
peace loving little bird, quiet, although very quick in its
motions, and seldom asserts itself, being wholly free from the
aggressiveness that marks the behavior of some of the larger
flycatchers. We meet it almost invariably alone, or in the company
of its mate or its brood of young.
Here in eastern Massachusetts the wood pewee is not a common
bird; it has diminished in numbers noticeably during the past 20
years. Both Wilson and Aubudon speak of it as more common than the
phoebe. At the present time the reverse is true here, in the
proportion, it seems, of ten to one.
Speaking of the wood pewee's relations with other species of
birds, A. Dawes DuBois says: "The pewees would not tolerate
red-winged blackbirds or red-headed woodpeckers, although they
were not agitated by the presence of flickers. With chipping
sparrows they were on very friendly terms. The toleration of
another species I once saw displayed even in the vicinity of the
nest. A least flycatcher was building its deep nest about 60 feet
from the ground in a tall slender tree, while a wood pewee sat
unconcerned in her own flat nest about 5 feet away in the same
tree."
Beatrice Sawyer Rossell (1921) points out an exception to the
bird's usual peaceful behavior. She relates: "My attention
was suddenly attracted by a Wood Pewee, which flew to a dead twig,
not 3 feet above my head. I called my companion's attention to it,
and as I spoke the bird darted at my head, coming so close that I
instinctively swerved. He flew back to his perch, and in a minute
made another dart, almost brushing me with his wings. . . . For a
few seconds he fluttered around me, then made a dart and pecked my
finger with his sharp little bill."
Ira N. Gabrielson (1922), who had lowered a nest containing
three eggs to within 3 feet of the ground, says: "We were
regarded with absolute indifference as we approached to within six
feet to take a photograph. . . . The brooding bird was not
disturbed by my entrance into the blind but as the camera lens
appeared in the opening of the blind she left the nest and dashed
repeatedly at the lens, snapping her mandibles vigorously. This
continued for several minutes before she finally returned to the
nest. At intervals during the morning she renewed her attack on
the lens but aside from this paid no attention to either the blind
or my movements."
Voice.--The wood pewee has a very
attractive voice--a sweet, pure, tranquil whistle delivered calmly
in short, slow phrases. The leisurely notes, sliding smoothly and
evenly as they change in pitch, give the impression of restfulness
and peace, almost of sadness. Bradford Torrey (1901) calls the
song "an elegy." All day from dawn to dusk it goes
languidly on, pee-a-wee, (a pause) peea, phrase
after phrase, often with long pauses between them, never hurried,
always serene. The song continues well into hot, parched August,
when most birds are silent. Aretas A. Saunders (1924), speaking of
the uniformity of the wood pewee's singings, says: "Of a
number of records made from different individuals at the same
season of the year, the majority are likely to be almost, if not
exactly, identical."
Perhaps, in the case of the wood pewee, the term song should be
applied only to the bird's singing in the half light before dawn
and in the evening long after sunset. At these times of day the
bird devotes about 40 minutes in the morning and a shorter, less
regular period in the evening to singing a song quite different
from its daylight notes, a song so charmingly rhythmical that it
has attracted the attention of musicians and excited their
admiration.
I noticed it for the first time on June 3, 1911, and wrote in
my notes: "At 3:40 this morning (sun rose at 4:09) a wood
pewee sang over and over with perfect regularity a song of five
drawling notes--pee-a-wee, pee-wee--both phrases ending on
a rising inflection. The syllables and the pauses between them
were so regular that I could time by my breathing. Pee-a-wee
corresponded exactly with an inspiration, then, after a short
pause the pee-wee finished at the end of expiration. Then a
longer pause--just as long as the rest between breaths--and after
this he repeated his song with my next breath. I was breathing, I
suppose, 16 times a minute, and the bird slowly fell behind, but
he fell behind not from any irregularity, but because his rate was
slightly slower than mine."
In listening to the twilight song in more recent years I have
noted that, as the song goes on and on, a bird will occasionally
introduce into it, among the phrases that rise in pitch, a phrase
of falling inflection. This phrase brings to the song a restful
effect. Indeed, Henry Oldys (1904), taking this infrequent phrase
as the final theme of a four-line song, points out "that it
is constructed in the form of the ballad of human
music." He explains that "the arrangement of the
ordinary ballad frequently consists of a musical theme for the
first line, an answering theme for the second line that leaves the
musical satisfaction suspended, a repetition of the first theme
for the third line, and a repetition of the second theme, either
exactly or in general character, but ending with the keynote, for
the fourth line." Illustrating with a verse of "Way
Down upon the S'wanee River," he shows that the wood
pewee's song is governed by the same principles, and that the
final keynote (of the falling phrase) completely satisfies the
ear.
When the bird combines his phrases in this way, as he does from
time to time, he converts his long soliloquy into a song of great
beauty. But we must bear in mind that it is only through the
fortuitous arrangement of its parts that the singing assumes for a
moment the ballad form, and that the introduction of the key
phrase is purely inadvertent.
Mr. Oldys slyly remarks at the end of his interesting
exposition of the twilight song: "In closing this brief
account I would call attention to the remarkable fact--perhaps a
joke on us--that a bird which we have classed outside the ranks of
the singers proper should deliver a song that judged by our own
musical standards takes higher technical rank than any other known
example of bird music."
The reader is referred also to two articles by Wallace Craig
(1926, 1933) analyzing the twilight song.
Taverner and Swales (1907) write of the wood pewees at Point
Pelee: "Their voices can be heard any hour of the day
uttering their pathetically plaintive note; and often in the
night, as we have lain awake in the tent, some Pewee has aroused
itself and a long drawn 'pewee' has punctuated the darkness
with its soft sweetness."
Harrison F. Lewis, in a letter to Mr. Bent, writes: "On
July 12, 1920, I saw a wood pewee dash out of a tree at the height
of about 40 feet from the ground and fly wildly and erratically
about in a small area, crying rapidly and unceasingly, in a
high-pitched squeaky voice, whee-chuttle-chuttle, whee-chuttle,
etc., for about half a minute."
I have heard similar notes in midsummer from a pewee perched in
a tree--seven or eight short whistled syllables given as a rapid
twitter which suggested a goldfinch's voice, and wholly lacked the
usual drawling quality of the pewee's.
The wood pewee's call note is a soft monosyllable, lower and
less sharply enunciated than the explosive chip of the
phoebe.
Francis Beach White, who has studied the voice of the wood
pewee for more than 20 years, calls attention to a seasonal
variation in the notes. He says: "In the last week of May,
prolonged singing analogous to the twilight song is heard, but
this is not developed fully until June. In June the notes take on
a somewhat richer tone. In July the phee-ew is heard in
long series, especially at dawn and after sunset, and excited
jumbles of song notes may also be heard occasionally, as well as
antiphonal calling. In August, notes of more emotional tone are
given, and toward the last of the month pu-ee is often
heard with a strident element in the last syllable. The human
reaction to the notes endues the last-mentioned call with a
petulant anxiety, and the twilight song with a paradoxical
mournful happiness."
Field marks.--The following
excellent differential diagnosis is quoted from Ralph Hoffmann
(1904): "The long-drawn song, when given, distinguishes the
Wood Pewee from any of the other Flycatchers, but when the bird is
silent it may be confused either with the Phoebe or with the
Chebec. It may be distinguished from the former by its smaller
size and by its well-marked wing-bars; moreover, it never
flirts its tail after the manner of the Phoebe. It is considerably
larger than the Chebec, and, when it faces an observer, the middle
of its breast shows a light line separating the darker
sides."
Enemies.--The wood pewee is
subject only to the dangers that beset most of the small passerine
birds. Notable among its enemies is the blue jay, which may rob it
of its eggs or young.
Dr. Friedmann (1929) calls the wood pewee "a not uncommon
victim of the Cowbird. . . . As many as four Cowbird eggs have
been reported from a single nest of this species, but such cases
are extremely rare. . . . About 3 dozen records have come to my
notice but these probably represent a small percentage of the
cases found."
Fall.--At Point Pelee, Taverner and
Swales (1907) found wood pewees "very abundant in the early
days of fall. It is evident that the first fall movement of this
species begins early in the season. The 24th of August, 1907, we
found the woods of the Point already in possession of innumerable
hosts of Wood Pewees, and through early September we have always
found them the most prominent bird in the landscape."
Alfred M. Bailey and Earl G. Wright (1931), writing of southern
Louisiana, says: "In November it is fairly numerous, and one
of the delights of still hunting for deer along the wooded
regions, is to watch the small birds working through the tree
tops. Small warblers are ever on the move, but the pewee often
sits motionless on twigs over the water, and then comes suddenly
to life long enough to flutter into space, seize an insect, and
drop back to perch."
William Brewster (1937) gives an instance of a young wood pewee
caught by inclement weather in northern Maine late in the season:
1899, October 1.--A bitter day for the season with harsh
north-west wind, over clouded sky and frequent flurries of snow
melting as fast as it struck the ground in the lowlands, but
whitening the mountain crests from morning to night. Visiting our
boat-house by the river-bank in Upton this afternoon I was not a
little surprised to find a Wood Pewee there, cowering under the
lee of the building with ruffled and somewhat bedraggled plumage,
looking benumbed and disheartened. Nevertheless its eyes shone
brightly and it made occasional dashing forays among the thick
falling snowflakes apparently mistaking them for white-winged
insects or at least treating them as such. It spent most of its
time, however, on the ground, or rather on piles of chips and
pieces of boards, where it fluttered or hopped from place to place
picking up food the nature of which I failed to ascertain.
Eastern Wood-Pewee*
Contopus virens
Contributed by Winsor
Marrett Tyler
*Original Source: Bent,
Arthur Cleveland. 1942. Smithsonian Institution United
States National Museum Bulletin 179: 266-279. United States
Government Printing Office
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