Home | Wild Files | N.H. Animals | Animals A-Z | Watch Online

Eastern Wood Pewee - Contopus virens

Classification

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Tyrannidae
Genus: Contopus

ICUN Redlist - World Status:

Least Concern

Description

The eastern wood pewee is a small flycatcher that is aboout 5-6 inches in length. It has grayish-olive upperparts, a grayish-white throat, breast, and belly, and white wing bars. It has a dark gray bill; the lower bill is yellow-orange at the base. Males and females look alike.

Range

Map The eastern wood pewee is a neotropical migrant. It breeds from south central and southeastern Canada to the Gulf coast and Florida. It winters in northwestern South America in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. It is one of the last neotropical migrants to return north in the spring.

Habitat

The eastern wood pewee is found in deciduous, coniferous, and mixed forests.

Diet

The eastern wood pewee eats insects. It perches on tree branches in the middle part of the understory and waits for its prey to fly by and then chases after it. It occasionally eats seeds.

Life Cycle

The female lays 2-3 eggs in a open cup nest. The chicks hatch in 12-13 days and fledge when they are 14-18 days old. The female has one brood a year.

Behavior

The eastern wood pewee is very hard to spot, but can be identified by its "pee-ah-wee" call.

Audio Credit: xeno-canto.org Chris Parrish