- Contopus cooperi
Identification
Photographed: Crow Valley Camp Ground, NE Colorado.
7 1/2" (19 cm). A large-billed and heavy-headed bird, deep olive-brown, with dark sides of breast and flanks separated by white patch down center of breast. White feather tufts protrude from lower back at base of tail; tail broad and prominently notched. Compare with Greater Pewee.
Length: 6.25 inches Large, triangular head Dark face with indistinct eye ring Fairly large, dark bill Dark olive upperparts and sides White throat, center of breast, belly and undertail coverts White wing bars White rump feathers sometimes protrude over top of wings Juveniles have somewhat browner upperparts
Distribution
Breeds in Alaska, east across Canada to northern New England, and south to mountains of California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and in northern New York and New England. Winters in tropics.
Taxonomy
Kingdom: Animalia -> Phylum: Chordata -> Class: Aves -> Order: Passeriformes -> Family: Tyrannidae -> Genus: Contopus -> Species: C. cooperi
Habitat
Boreal spruce and fir forests, usually near openings, burns, ponds, and bogs.
Behaviour
3 brown-spotted buff eggs in a twig nest lined with lichens, mosses, and grasses, placed near the end of a branch among the foliage well up in an evergreen tree. Song a distinctive and emphatic quick-three-beers; call a loud pip-pip-pip. This flycatcher almost always perches on dead branches in an exposed position at or very near the tops of the tallest trees. Analysis of stomach contents of these birds has shown that everything it eats is winged; it takes no caterpillars, spiders, or other larvae.
