A. O. U. No. 464. Empidonax difficilis Baird.
Synonym.—Western Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.
Description.—Adults: Above and on sides of breast olive or olive-green; a lighter shade of same color continued across breast; remaining underparts yellow (between sulphur and primrose), sordid on throat and sides, clearest on abdomen; bend of wing sulphur-yellow; a faint yellowish eye-ring; axillaries and lining of wings paler yellow; middle coverts and tips of greater coverts, continuous with edging of exposed secondaries, yellowish gray, forming two more or less conspicuous wing-bars. Bill brownish black above, yellow below; feet and legs brownish dusky; iris brown. Young birds are browner above and paler below; wing-bars cinnamon-buffy, (and not certainly distinguishable in color from young of E. traillii). Length 5.50-6.00 (139.7-152.4); wing 2.64 (67); tail 2.24 (57); bill .47 (12); tarsus.67 (17).
Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; characterized by pervading yellowness;—really the easiest, because the most common of this difficult group; note a soft piswit; a woodland recluse. Adults always more yellow than E. traillii, from which it is not otherwise certainly distinguishable afield (save by note).
Nesting.—Nest: placed anywhere in forest or about shaded cliffs, chiefly at lower levels; usually well constructed of soft green moss, fine grasses, fir needles and hemp. Eggs: 3 or 4, dull creamy white, sparingly spotted and dotted or blotched with cinnamon and pinkish brown, chiefly about larger end. Av. size .66 × .52 (16.8 × 13.2). Season: May 1-July 1; one or two broods.
General Range.—Western North America from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, breeding north to Sitka and south chiefly in the mountains to northern Lower California and northern Mexico; south in winter into Mexico.
Range in Washington.—Common summer resident in timbered sections thruout the State.
Migrations.—Spring: Seattle-Tacoma, April 15. Fall: c. Sept. 1.
Authorities.—Empidonax difficilis, Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858, p. 193 “Catal. No. 5920.” L. D¹. Ra. Ss¹. Ss². B. E.
Specimens.—(U. of W.) P. Prov. B. BN. E.
Please observe the scientific name, difficilis, that is, difficult. There is a delicate irony about the use of this term as a distinctive appellation for one of the “gnat kings,” for, surely, the plural, Empidonaces difficiles, would comprehend them all. There is something, indeed, to be learned from the notes of these little Flycatchers, and the first year the author studied them seriously he supposed he had a sure clew to their specific unraveling. But that was in the freshmen year of Empidonaxology. In coming up for “final exams.” he confesses to knowing somewhat less about them.
The bird, also, is well called Western; for however difficult the genus, we know at least that difficilis (speaking seriously now) is the commonest species; that it appears under more varied conditions and enjoys a more general distribution than any other species of Empidonax in the West. The bird is, also, the first to arrive in the spring, returning to the latitude of Seattle about the middle of April, or when the yellow-green racemes of the Large-leafed Maple (Acer macrophyllum) are first shaken out to the breeze. The little fay keeps well up in the trees, occupying central positions rather than exposed outposts; and so perfectly do his colors blend in with the tender hues of the new foliage that we hear him twenty times to once we see him.
The notes are little explosive sibilants fenced in by initial and final “p” or “t” sounds. If one prints them they are not at all to be vocalized, but only whispered or hissed, pssseet, pssseeit, psswit, or piswit. Other variations are sé a-wit, slowly and listlessly; cleotip, briskly; kushchtlip, a fairy sneeze in Russian. One becomes familiar with these tiny cachinations, and announces the Western Flycatcher unseen with some degree of confidence. But the way is beset with dangers and surprises. Once, in June, at a point on Lake Chelan, after an hour’s discriminating study, I shot from practically the same stand, three birds which said swit, piswit, and pisoo respectively, and picked up a Wright’s Flycatcher (E. wrightii), a Western Flycatcher (E. difficilis) and a Trail Flycatcher (E. traillii). The same woods contained Hammond’s Flycatcher (E. hammondi), while the Western Wood Pewee (Myiochanes richardsonii), which has the same general economy, was abundant also. Difficilis? Etiam!
The Western Flycatcher inhabits the deepest woods and occurs thruout the State wherever sufficient shade is offered. It is rather partial to well-watered valleys, and will follow these well up into the mountains, but does not occur on the mountain-sides proper at any considerable altitude. Nor does it appear to visit, save during migrations, those green oases in the dry country which are the delight of E. traillii. It mingles with traillii in summer along the banks of streams and at the edges of swamps; with hammondi in the more open woods and along the lower hillsides; with wrightii along the margin of mountain lakes and streams; but in the forests proper it is easily dominant.
The Western Flycatcher is a catholic nester. It builds almost always a substantial cup of twigs, grasses, and hemp, lined with grass, hair or feathers. The outside is usually plentifully bedecked with moss, or else the whole structure is chiefly composed of this substance—not, however, unless the color-tone of the immediate surroundings will permit of it. In position it varies without limit. We find nests sunk like a Solitaire’s in a mossy bank, or set in a niche of a rocky cliff, on logs, stumps, or beams, in a clump of ferns, or securely lodged in a fir tree at a height of forty feet. One I found in a swamp was saddled on the stem of a slanting vine maple without a vestige of cover other than that afforded by the general gloom.
Taken near Tacoma. Photo by J. H. Bowles.
NEST OF WESTERN FLYCATCHER.
Eggs to the number of three or four, rarely five, are deposited late in May or early in June, and only one brood is raised in a season. The eggs are of a dull creamy white color, spotted and blotched rather lightly with cinnamon brown and pinkish buff, easily distinguishable from all others save those of the Traill Flycatcher.
These Flycatchers in nesting time are very confiding and very devoted parents. One may sometimes touch the sitting bird, and, when off, she flutters about very close to the intruder, sneezing violently and snipping her mandibles like fairy scissors.