Yellow Bellied Flycatcher

The yellow-bellied flycatcher (Empidonax flaviventris) is a small insect-eating bird of the tyrant flycatcher family.

Adults have greenish upperparts and yellowish underparts (especially on the throat), with a dusky wash on the chest. They have a white or yellow eye ring that lacks the teardrop projection of Pacific-slope (E. difficilis) or cordilleran (E. occidentalis) flycatchers, white or yellowish wing bars that contrast strongly against the black wings, a broad, flat bill, and a relatively short tail when compared to other members of the genus. The upper mandible of the bill is dark, while the lower mandible is orange-pink. DNA testing in 2014 confirmed a field mark, involving the extent of buffy edging on the secondaries, to reliably distinguish this species from the two so-called "Western Flycatchers."^[2][3]

Measurements:^[4]

• Length: 5.1–5.9 in (13–15 cm)
• Weight: 0.3–0.6 oz (8.5–17.0 g)
• Wingspan: 7.1–7.9 in (18–20 cm)

Yellow-bellied flycatchers wait on a perch low or in the middle of a tree and fly out to catch insects in flight, sometimes hovering over foliage. They sometimes eat berries or seeds.

The yellow-bellied flycatcher's song can be transcribed as a rough, descending "tse-berk", which can be similar to the more common least flycatcher's snappier, more evenly pitched "che-bek."

Their breeding habitat is wet northern woods, especially spruce bogs, across Canada and the northeastern United States. They make a cup nest in sphagnum moss on or near the ground.

These birds migrate to southern Mexico and Central America.

• Yellow-bellied Flycatcher Species Account - Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Yellow-bellied Flycatcher - Empidonax flaviventris - USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
• Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Environment Canada
• Yellow-bellied Flycatcher Canadian range, Canadian Biodiversity Web Site
• "Yellow-bellied Flycatcher media". Internet Bird Collection.
• Yellow-bellied Flycatcher photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University)
• Interactive range map of Empidonax flaviventris at IUCN Red List