Flycatchers in Pennsylvania Forests

     Five species of flycatchers nest in southeastern Pennsylvania woods, and other forests across much of the eastern United States.  All species of these small, plainly-feathered birds catch flying insects in mid-air to feed themselves and their young.  They are all hard to spot because they are camouflaged against tree bark and the shadows created by leaves.  They mostly find each other for mating among the concealing, protective foliage of the woods by the males' simple, but distinctive, songs.  We humans mostly find and identify them by song as well.  And these related flycatchers summer in different niches in the same woodlands, which reduces competition among them for food.
     Great crested flycatchers are different in appearance than the other three kinds of flycatchers in eastern woods.  They are a bit larger, and have dull-rusty tails and pale-yellow bellies, colors that the other flycatchers in eastern woods don't have.
     Crested flycatchers raise young in abandoned woodpecker holes in the dead wood of woodland trees and other cavities in trees.  But they also rear offspring in bird boxes, open mail boxes and so on.  And some, more adaptable, pairs hatch young in older suburban areas with many tall trees.  Crested flycatchers' defining calls are an ascending "wheeeeep". 
     Eastern phoebes are gray flycatchers that traditionally hatch young in mud and moss nurseries on rock ledges under overhanging boulders near water in woods.  But being adaptable, some pairs of these flycatchers also build their cradles on support beams under porch roofs and small bridges in the woods. To phoebes the beams are rock ledges and the roofs and bridges are overhanging boulders.  All those places, natural and human-made, shelter young phoebes from predators and the weather.
     Some pairs of phoebes even nest under small bridges in heavily tree-dotted pastures that have a stream running through them.  And wherever phoebes raise young, one can hear their often-repeated "fee-bee, fee-bee" songs.   
     Eastern wood pewees rear offspring in deciduous woods in bottomlands and lower slopes, but not necessarily near water.  These gray birds have two white wing bars on the shoulder of each wing.  And their cradles, which are made of rootlets and grasses and anchored to the forks of two outer twigs on forest trees, sag like grassy cups beneath those twigs.
     But the most wonderful part of wood pewees as a species, to us humans, is their songs, particularly when heard at dusk in the rapidly darkening woods in concert with the flute-like phrases of wood thrushes.  Pewees' beautiful, seemingly sad songs are a whistled "pee-a-weee", pee-a-weee", "peee-oooo", with a descending "oooo".  The haunting phrases of pewees and thrushes are repeated over and over until dark, at last, hushes the birds for the night.     
     Acadian flycatchers build rootlet and grass nurseries that droop below the outer twigs of deciduous trees, especially American beeches, that lean over streams in bottomland woods.  And they get most of their flying insect food around the streams they nest along.  These flycatchers resemble other species in their genus of flycatchers so much that the only safe way to identify them is to listen for their short, explosive "peet-suh" song.  
     Willow flycatchers nest in bushy thickets along the edges of woods and in overgrown meadows and fields near woodlands.  Again, they are so similar to relatives in their genus that the only way to find and identify them is to hear their explosive "fitz-bew" song.
     All these flycatcher species are common in woods in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Each has its own niche that reduces rivalry for food and its own song so the genders of each kind can find each other. 
Though not brightly feathered, they are pretty and interesting in their own ways.