A Six Flycatcher Day 6/2/2025

    On Monday I birded my two favorite places, my yard and Island Beach State Park.  Now that June is upon us, much of last month’s migration activity has dwindled down and what’s here now as far as land birds is pretty much what will be so until late summer.  Nevertheless I still managed to find six flycatchers on the day.  One of the birds is always rare for our area and another is not easy to find during migration and now, post migration, is flagged as rare on eBird.

The first bird I saw when I walked out my patio door in the morning was a large, backlit flycatcher high atop a dead tree snag.  A great crested flycatcher was calling in the general vicinity so at first that’s what I thought it was.  Yet something didn’t seem right for that ID.  I watched it for a few minutes and noticed it was much darker and wasn’t vocalizing when the great crested did.  I noticed it appeared to have a dark vest which turned my thoughts to an olive-sided flycatcher.  As it flew back and forth from the snag catching bugs for breakfast, I was able to make out white patches on the sides of its rump.  The patches and vest are indicative of olive-sided.  I was able to get some photos that were good enough to prove it was indeed an olive-sided flycatcher.

Olive-sided flycatcher.  © S. Weiss

Olive-sided flycatchers spend their off season in South America and breed in Canada and parts of the western United States.  They are scarce enough here in migration to be considered rare.  This year though seems to be a good year for them as I have noticed more sightings of them in the state and locally.  This is the second time one has visited my yard.  Before heading out to Island Beach I did a few simple chores in the yard.  While I had my ladder out I decided to check one of my bird boxes. I had good success with this particular one years back with Eastern screech-owls nesting there, but now it’s mostly occupied by squirrels. I peaked in the box and was happily surprised to see that the great crested flycatchers set up a nest there.  Three cream colored eggs with brown speckles were at the bottom.  I retreated from the nest so as not to spook either adult that might have been nearby.  

Great crested flycatcher nest.  © S. Weiss

At Island Beach I spent most of my two plus hours at Reeds Road.  There is where I picked up the other four flycatchers (five including another great crested).  Along the path I heard the distinct sound of an Eastern wood-pewee calling.  I also heard and saw an Eastern kingbird, a common summer resident at the park.  Near the end of trail, I was trying to sort out the different bird sounds I was hearing when I caught the distant song of a willow flycatcher.  These flycatchers breed in New Jersey and are not uncommon throughout the summer here.  

During this trip I also came across a merlin, a bay breasted warbler and a pair of magnolia warblers.  None of these breeds here and are somewhat late in departing, hence eBird flagged them as rare.  The bigger surprise for me was the sound of another flycatcher.  The call, or song actually, was distinctly different than the others I had heard.  It sounded close but I couldn’t get eyes on it.  It turned out to be an alder flycatcher.  Alders breed mostly well north of New Jersey, with their southern range only along the Appalachians.  It is in our area late so eBird flagged it as rare.  Even in mid migration they are not easily found in Ocean County. 

Alder and willow flycatchers were once one species, Traill’s flycatcher.  As two separate species it is extremely difficult to distinguish one from the other just by appearance.  It was engrained in me early on that the only way to separate the two in the field is by their vocalizations.  Yet every year I scratch my head in wonder when I see some people list alder flycatcher without any notation as to how they eliminated it was from being a willow flycatcher.  I obtained a nice clear audio of this alder for my list.  It was my sixth flycatcher of the day and my 291st life bird for the state park.

Traill's flycatchers, alder (left) and willow (right).  © S. Weiss

The most reliable way to identify these two (once one) species is by voice: the "free-beer" of the alder and "fitz-bew" of the willow.

I could have made it a seven-flycatcher day if I had taken the drive down south to the Forsythe NWR in Galloway Township for a rare scissor-tailed flycatcher that was entertaining folks.  I opted not to take the 50 minutes to one hour drive, especially coming off the four-and-a-half drive home from Rhode Island the day before.  Scissor-taileds are a nice rarity to see in the state since its breeding range is mostly Texas, Oklahoma and the surrounding area, but at least I saw one a few years back about a mile from my house.  Now, had it been an even rarer fork-tailed flycatcher from South America, I’m pretty sure I would have made the trip.

Scissor-tailed flycatcher, Toms River High School East, June 17, 2019.  © S. Weiss