Acadian Flycatcher in DC (May 29th 2022)

    Flycatchers, in my experience, provide exclusively low-angle views. First I wanted to share a few examples of times I suspected to have seen an acadian flycatcher in New York County. These birds did not sing for me. The first bird did, however, create a wheer or whir sound.

   (Inwood Hill Park, New York, NY)
(The Battery, New York, NY)

    On a recent trip to D.C. to I was able to hear a very clear and closely sung acadian song. Sung quickly in two(?) notes, the song can be remembered as peet-sah, or flee-sick. Reflected on a spectrogram, the sound appears like a sharp upward pointing arrow that bends outward slightly on the way down.
    
    
(Recorded in the Merlin App Sound ID at Kenilworth)


    The flycatcher was easy to spot and difficult to keep track of as it sang frequently and flew adeptly from perch to perch in the mid-story. Trees of a wide age-range grew here between the eastern bank of the Anacostia River and the Kenilworth tidal marsh. At first the flycatcher was higher up, presumably foraging. Then the flycatcher began to drop lower, eventually revealing a hammock-type nest, hanging in a young red maple about 9 feet off the sparsely vegetated understory. The young maple stood at the edge of a clearing created by a fallen tree. The canopy above the clearing had closed or never opened by the fallen tree or trees and the entire area was completely in shade of the hot day. 




    Acadian flycatcher breeding territories in New York became unoccupied in the 20th century likely due to the logging industry. Dependent on mature woods in river valley habitats, acadians flycatchers have been reoccupying New York since the 1970s and 80s. 



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