Social Flycatcher

About the Social Flycatcher

The Social Flycatcher looks like a Great Kiskadee that shrank in the wash: the same bold black-and-white striped head and lemon belly, but smaller, with a stubbier bill and none of the kiskadee's swagger. True to its name it is usually found in noisy family groups through most of its range, which runs from Mexico to Argentina.

In the United States it is a major rarity, with only a handful of accepted records, all from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

This bird was one of those records, photographed on the campus of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg in December 2021 during the Valley's astonishing winter of Mexican vagrants.