FLYCATCHERS: WESTERN FLYCATCHER 
435 
Comparisons. —Of the six small Empidonaxes found in New Mexico, the Buff¬ 
breasted can easily be recognized in the field by its buffy underparts. The other five 
are so much alike, with upperparts of dull olive, brownish, or grayish, pale wing bars, 
and underparts of pale yellowish or whitish, that they can be safely identified only by 
measurements and comparison of skins. Notes, habits, and favorable habitats 
however, may give a clue to their identity. The yellow-bellied Western is common 
in the higher ranges in spruce, fir, and aspen; the brown and white Traill largely in 
willow thickets and mountain meadows; the narrow billed, dark chested Uammond — 
only a migrant in the State—is found along canyons and among pines; the similarly 
marked Wright, with wider bill and white outer tail feather, nests from 7,000-9,000 
feet; the rare, grayer Gray has been found only twice in the State. (See pp. 437, 438, 
440). 
Range. —Breeds from Glacier Bay, Alaska, coast of British Columbia, western 
Montana, and southwestern South Dakota, south to western Texas, Arizona, and 
southern California; winters in Mexico south to Cape San Lucas, Tres Marias 
Islands, and Oaxaca. 
State Records. —The breeding range of the Western Flycatcher extends from 
about 7,000 feet at Fort Wingate (Hollister) and the Animas Mountains (Goldman) 
to 11,500 feet on the Taos Mountains above Tunning (Bailey). [It was common 
in all the higher ranges, in spruce, fir, and aspen and very common in the Black 
Range, from 7,000 to 8,800 feet (Ligon, 1916-1918) ]; it extends east to the Capitan 
Mountains (Gaut); and to the Guadalupe Mountains (Bailey). Both in 1903 on the 
upper Pecos and in 1904 in the Taos Mountains the young were found just out of the 
nest August 5-7 (Bailey); while young at the same stage of growth were found at 
8,600 feet in the Zuni Mountains August 15, 1911 (Dearborn). 
In the fall, the species remains to early September in northern New Mexico and 
to the middle of the month in the southern part of the State. 
On the return in the spring, the first one seen in 1886 at Apache, was on May 21 
(Anthony); though it probably arrives on the average a few days earlier, and it was 
taken May 2S, 1900, at Willis (Birtwell).—W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —Usually not far from water, in trees, stumps, upturned roots, under banks, 
on rock ledges, in natural cavities or about buildings; made of plant stems and fibers, 
down, inner bark, rootlets, leaves, and green moss, lined with horsehair and feathers, 
often coated with green moss, lichen, and spider web. Eggs: 3 to 5, white, blotched 
and spotted with brown and buffy pink. 
Food. —Animal matter, 99.31 per cent, including useful beetles 2.45 per cent; 
other beetles, including the nut destroyer and other harmful species, 5.94 per cent; 
hymenoptera, 38.76 per cent, mostly bees and wasps, but also ants; flies, 31.22 per 
cent; bugs, 8.44 per cent, including stink-bugs, and leaf and tree hoppers; moths 
and caterpillars, 6.59 per cent, including the codling moth larvae. 
General Habits. —In the forests, the little Western Flycatcher is 
more often heard than seen, its soft whee-ee or its sharp alarm note 
notifying you of its presence when its dull olivaceous back and dingy 
yellowish underparts are lost in the greenery of the tree tops. From 
the bird’s northern breeding grounds in Alaska, Alfred M. Bailey wrote, 
“I do not know of a more pleasing sound than their quiet call coming 
through the great woods, mysteriously as though from nowhere.” In 
the breeding season, as Mr. Henshaw says, diffidlis is “ most often found 
in narrow canyons and deep shady glens . . . almost invariably near a 
stream or among trees that border the open meadowy tracts” (1875, p. 
