Dan's Feathursday Feature: Least Flycatcher

I was always the shortest boy in my class. Right up through the end of grade school, only Kevin McNamara came close to being as vertically challenged as I. On the eighth-grade football team I weighed 97 pounds with my pads on. In baseball I was always the leadoff batter, because I could usually draw a walk. Those were the days when, if the entire class exited for recess or an assembly, our teachers lined us up by height. “Boys! In line behind Danny!” (I hated that diminutive.) Then, instead of just falling in line and moving along with the herd, I had to actually pay attention to where I—and by default, my whole class—was going. No rest for the little guy.

I sprouted ten inches and over forty pounds in my freshman year of high school, placing me pretty much in the middle of the pack size-wise, but I still chafe at the words least or lesser. And please don’t call me Danny.

Every time I meet a Least Flycatcher, I give it a silent nod of apology for its unfortunate moniker. I’d like to be able to tell it not to take it personally; the English version of birds’ names is often poorly chosen. You have to look at the bird’s Latin name for the whole story. Lesser Scaup, Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Tern, for example. Those birds’ Latin species names point to more interesting characteristics to differentiate them from their larger relatives. But the fact is that even the Least Flycatcher’s formal Latin name is demeaning: Empidonax minimus—smallest flycatcher, Least Flycatcher, plain and simple.

The more I learn about the Least Flycatcher, though, the more I think that I’m probably making too big a thing of a little linguistic slight. If I could ask the Least Flycatcher itself to weigh in on this issue, it would probably just shrug its scapulars and tell me to “Get over it, Danny boy,” before swooping down from its perch to catch another insect on the fly.

“No rest for the little guy” takes on a whole new meaning with this bird, which seldom sits still. And I can say this for sure: No grade school teacher in his right mind would have the Least Flycatcher lead a class to recess. That bird would have the entire class bouncing off the walls before they even got out the door. Even when it is perched, the Least Flycatcher is not really still. It’s more like suspended motion—changing position every few seconds, making sure to get a 360-degree view of its surroundings. And all the while, it sings what is probably the shortest song of all its closely related flycatchers—a short, dry, explosive “che-bek” that makes up in intensity what it lacks in duration.

Despite the brevity of its song, the Least Flycatcher is probably the singingest flycatcher in the woods. During the whole breeding season, the male will perch near the nest and just che-bek! away non-stop through the entire morning—as many as sixty che-beks a minute—eventually tapering off in frequency in the hot afternoon. Its song is so constant that ironically it can be difficult to hear, because it becomes part of the background noise that we all too easily tune out if we don’t pay close attention.

The Least Flycatcher is one of the earliest flycatchers to return to the Chicago area in spring. Look for them to show up well before the trees have leafed out. In the fall, it is one of the latest to head south. You can count on the Least Flycatcher to stick around until the last fly flies—sometimes even into November, depending on the weather.

One of my favorite attributes of the Least Flycatcher is that it is probably the easiest to identify by sight. Its close relatives like the Alder Flycatcher, or the Acadian Flycatcher, are notoriously difficult to tell apart and are best identified by song. But the Least Flycatcher has certain traits that make it stand out. It has two wide, white wing bars and a bold white eye ring that you can’t miss, even without the aid of binoculars. Its wings are short and its head is large in comparison to its body; I don’t know why, but it makes me think of Ed Asner, if you could imagine the actor shrunk to just five inches.

All in all, there is plenty to say about the Least Flycatcher. Tiniest of the empidonax, shortest song, singingest, most easily identified, earliest to arrive in spring, latest to leave in fall,… the tiny Least Flycatcher may be the flycatcher with the most superlatives!

Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights and photography of Chicago birder, Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.