Acadian Flycatcher

About the Acadian Flycatcher

The Acadian Flycatcher is the Empidonax of the deep shade - a small, greenish flycatcher that breeds in mature, moist woodland, almost always near a creek, ravine, or swamp where big trees keep the understory dark and open.

Like all its look-alike relatives it is a puzzle of subtle marks: greenish above, pale below with a faint wash, a narrow eye-ring, and a proportionally long, broad bill. The voice settles arguments - an explosive, upslurred "PEET-sah!" fired from a mid-story perch, one of the signature sounds of an East Texas bottomland in summer.

In Texas the Acadian breeds through the eastern forests and along wooded rivers of the eastern half of the state, and passes through elsewhere in migration, when a quiet bird in a shady Austin greenbelt can bring the whole Empidonax identification game to town.

It hunts with short, precise sallies beneath the canopy, hover-gleaning insects from leaves, and slings its tiny lichen-decorated nest in the fork of a horizontal branch, often directly over water - a neat, deliberate bird of a neat, cathedral-like habitat.