Cooperative Living July 2015 - 27

BLUE-GRAYGNATCATCHER
I
t was late April a few years back
when I noticed a little sprite of a bird
fly up and out of a low shrub
alongside the house, which drew my
attention to hundreds of flying insects,
rising on gossamer wings.
The little bird was actively plucking
them out of the air as fast as it could. At
first I thought it was a warbler of some
kind, but its long tail indicated it was
something different: It was a bird I
hadn't seen since the late 1960s along
the east shore of Wisconsin's Lake
Winnebago.
A little blue-gray gnatcatcher had
found a constant supply of food as it
rested and replenished its energy on its
journey to its breeding grounds. It was
the high point of that spring day - the
low point was that the little flying
insects the gnatcatcher was feeding on
were winged termites coming from the
outside woodwork of our sunroom.
The blue-gray gnatcatcher is a tiny,
long-tailed bird of the open woodlands.
This 4½-inch bird is, true to its name,
blue-gray above and grayish to white on
its underside, with a prominent eye ring,
a U-shaped black mark wrapping around
its forehead, and black tail with white
outer tail feathers and showing a lot of
white on its underside. It frequently
waves and cocks its tail on an angle
much like a wren. The female is similar,
but a bit duller, more brownish-gray, and
lacks the black edging on its head cap.
Immature gnatcatchers are pale-gray to
brownish in color.
The gnatcatcher is an energetic,
restless, little fluff of a bird, which could
pass as a mockingbird in miniature. It
tends to be attracted to park-like stands
of mature oaks, maples, ash mixed with
pines and brushy thickets in the
understory, especially near water. Edge
cover in logged areas, swamp forests,
and pine-flat woods with oak understory
are good habitat in the South. It emits a
warbler-like call, a thin, high-pitched
sound (but rather soft) as it feeds, as
well as a rapid, squeaky, buzzing or
July 2015/www.co-opliving.com
scolding call. One of its nicknames is
" chay chay, " referring to that call.
Another name is sylvan flycatcher.
The gnatcatcher feeds mainly on
insects and insect larvae, leafhoppers,
lice, small beetles, weevils, and small
caterpillars. When it catches
something like a grasshopper or moth,
it pulls the wings off and beats the
insect against a branch to " tenderize "
it. Sometimes it will fly up and capture
The gnatcatcher
is an energetic,
restless, little
fluff of a bird,
which could
pass as a
mockingbird
in miniature.
insects flycatcher-like, or will hover
amid flowers, buds and branches and
target airborne insects.
The gnatcatcher builds its nest
generally on a large horizontal tree
limb and the nest resembles a knot on
the tree. It's a cup-like affair made of
fine plant fibers and downs, held
together with spiderwebs and
decorated with lichens, not unlike the
nest of a hummingbird. Both sexes
work at construction.
A normal clutch of eggs is three to
five. They are light bluish-green,
spotted with brown. Both parent birds
participate in incubation and in
feeding the young. The male may start
a second nest on his own for the
second brood, while the female tends
to the first. The birds may build a
number of nests and reuse the material
in subsequent years. Gnatcatchers are
sometimes parasitized by cowbirds
laying eggs in their nests. This gives
them the option of moving to one of
the other nests. Incubation takes 11 to
15 days, and the young are fledged
after 14 or 15 more.
While the gnatcatcher is not rare,
this " fidgety-midget " is not commonly
seen, which is why I was so surprised
to find it in the sparse vegetation
alongside our house. You may see one
in open woodlands in the Piedmont,
the foothills of the Appalachians or
along the Nottoway River in the mosscovered
loblolly pines or in brushy
cover along lakes and coastal waters.
The gnatcatcher's population is
increasing and it has been moving its
range farther north. It is the most
northerly occurring gnatcatcher with
two subspecies in southern California
and southwestern U.S. into Mexico.
There is a western variant that is very
similar. The gnatcatcher is generally
not found in the Plains states. Other
members of its family are found in
Central and South America.
Gnatcatchers breed south of a line
from southern New Jersey to Ontario
and Wisconsin, south to Texas to
northeast California, then south to
southern Mexico, the Gulf States, and
the Bahamas. Only in the flatlands of
the western wheat belt are they scarce.
During migration and in winter,
gnatcatchers move in small bands,
usually high in the canopies of larger
trees. A few may even winter in
Virginia's coastal regions. Their winter
range extends from Virginia and the
Carolinas to Texas, south to the
Bahamas, eastern Mexico and
Guatemala. n
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Cooperative Living July 2015

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