Gray Flycatcher, Empidonax wrightii

Gray Flycatcher, Empidonax wrightii. Photograph taken within the wilds of Sonora, December 2017. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F. Smith, Alamos, Sonora.

Gray Flycatcher, Empidonax wrightii. Photograph taken within a residential community in Hereford, Arizona, September 2020. Photograph and identification courtesy of Bob Behrstock, Sierra Vista, Arizona (naturewideimages.com).

Background and Identification

The Gray Flycatcher, Empidonax wrightii, is a member of the Tyrannidae Family of Tyrant Flycatchers, which has four hundred twenty-five members placed in one hundred one genera, and in one of fifteen global species of the Empidonax Genus. They are also known as the American Gray Flycatcher and in Mexico as mosquero grisis.

The Gray Flycatcher is small and slim in stature. They are medium gray with a hint of olive or greenish-olive above and pale lemon-yellow undertail coverts below with lemon-yellow to whitish wing-bars. They are difficult to identify, with the most recognizable trait being their habit of wagging their tail in a gentle downward movement. The sexes are similar except when breeding, during which the females develop a brood patch, and the males develop a cloacal protuberance. Their heads are small and flattened, with a long narrow bill with a pinkish to yellow lower mandible with a distinctly defined dark tip, and an all-dark upper mandible with a black tip and a long and slightly notched tail with a white margin. Their eyes have a whitish eye-ring and pale supraloral line with a brown iris and brownish black or blackish legs and feet.

Habitat and Geographical Range

The Gray Flycatcher is found in semi-arid open coniferous woodlands and shrublands with big sagebrush and in dry washes or valleys at elevations up to 2,500 m (8,200 feet). They make annual short to medium distance migrations from their northern breeding grounds to their southern wintering grounds where they undergo a complete feather molt. They actively forage insects from shrubs and the lower branches in trees either picking off their prey from the ground, foliage, tree bark and branches or as sit-and-wait predators that swoop to catch flying insects in flight. They are known to actively defend their territories. Their nests are found on top of branches against the trunk or in forks of branches of a pine tree, or well-hidden in shrubs. The Gray Flycatcher is poorly studied and very little about their biology and behavior patterns has been documented.

Common Misidentifications

The Gray Flycatcher is very similar to and easily confused with the Dusky Flycatcher, Empidonax oberholseri (up and down tail flicking).

The Gray Flycatcher is a winter visitor to Mexico being found in Baja California Sur, western and southern Chihuahua and southern Coahuila south to central Oaxaca.

Conservation Status

From a conservation perspective the Gray Flycatcher is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. Their breeding areas have been adversely affected by the removal of sagebrush, fires within sagebrush and the deforestation of woodlands.