Great Crested Flycatcher

Some birds are just better looking than others.

Any top-ten ranking may be arbitrary and debatable, but the Great Crested Flycatcher certainly should make the list.

Sculpted through time by a careful ordering of mates, we now get to enjoy what has evolved so perfectly. 

By preference, a Great Crested Flycatcher lives in the treetops. However, if he finds too few critters up there to eat, you might be lucky enough to find him at eyelevel. 

He perched proudly on a bare branch between sallies to snatch flying insects…watching is cheap entertainment. 

Shy by nature and quick to flee if approached, the Great Crested Flycatcher insists on a wide comfort zone, but accepts manmade trappings when it suits his needs. 

Flycatchers spend a large part of their day just watching for opportunities, keeping one eye toward possible threats and the other on insects rising from the grass.

A varied diet of insects, invertebrates, seeds and berries makes food sourcing a simple task for the Great Crested Flycatcher. This accounts for his huge home territory stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

With a lemon yellow belly, an olive back, smartly detailed wings and tail, the Great Crested Flycatcher blends and contrasts nicely with the early spring foliage. 

Constantly twisting, turning and tilting his head to reckon what two wide set eyes are seeing at the same time, he or she (sexes similar) will entertain for hours...never knowing how beautiful they are.  

Allan

Credits:

The Sibley Guide to Birds

Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds