Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored 
Range — Eastern North America, from Florida to northern British 
provinces. Winters in Central America. 
Migrations — May. October. Common summer resident. 
The wood pewee, like the olive-sided flycatcher, has wings 
decidedly longer than its tail, and it is by no means a simple 
matter for the novice to tell these birds apart or separate them 
distinctly in the mind from the other members of a family whose 
coloring and habits are most confusingly similar. This dusky 
haunter of tall shady trees has not yet learned to be sociable like 
the phoebe; but while it may not be so much in evidence close 
to our homes, it is doubtless just as common. The orchard is as 
near the house as it often cares to come. An old orchard, where 
modern insecticides are unknown and neglect allows insects to 
riot among the decayed bark and fallen fruit, is a happy hunting 
ground enough ; but the bird’s real preferences are decidedly for 
high tree-tops in the woods, where no sunshine touches the 
feathers on his dusky coat. It is one of the few shade-loving 
birds. In deep solitudes, where it surely retreats by nesting 
time, however neighborly it may be during the migrations, its 
pensive, pathetic notes, long drawn out, seem like the expression 
of some hidden sorrow. Pe-a-wee, pe-a-wee, pewee-ah-peer is the 
burden of its plaintive song, a sound as depressing as it is familiar 
in every walk through the woods, and the bird’s most prominent 
characteristic. 
To see the bird dashing about in his aerial chase for insects, 
no one would accuse him of melancholia. He keeps an eye on 
the “main chance,” whatever his preying grief may be, and 
never allows it to affect his appetite. Returning to his perch 
after a successful sally in pursuit of the passing fly, he repeats his 
“sweetly solemn thought” over and over again all day long and 
every day throughout the summer. 
The wood pewees show that devotion to each other and to 
their home, characteristic of their family. Both lovers work on 
the construction of the flat nest that is saddled on some mossy or 
lichen-covered limb, and so cleverly do they cover the rounded 
edge with bits of bark and lichen that sharp eyes only can detect 
where the cradle lies. Creamy-white eggs, whose larger end is 
wreathed with brown and lilac spots, are guarded with fierce 
solicitude. 
Trowbridge has celebrated this bird in a beautiful poem. 
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