Length: About 7 inches; a little larger than the English sparrow.

Male and Female: Grayish-brown above; under parts light gray with yellowish wash; breast darker than throat, sides grayish-brown; head dark brown, somewhat crested; bill black, slightly hooked at tip, with bristles at base; wings dark brown, with inconspicuous whitish wing-bars; tail dark brown; edge of two outer tail-feathers yellowish-white.

Song: No real song. Flycatchers are songless birds. The note is a hoarse Phoebe, sometimes Pe-wit-Phoebe. It is usually uttered mournfully and monotonously; occasionally the male gives numerous Phoebes rapidly while on the wing.

Habitat: Near streams preferably. A favorite nesting site is underneath a bridge; eaves of barns or beams of piazzas are also used.

Range: Eastern North America. Breeds from north-central Canada south to northeastern New Mexico, central Texas, northern Mississippi and highlands of Georgia; winters south of latitude 37° to southern Mexico.

When March has lost some of its bluster and gentler weather prevails, there arrives from the land of sunshine and teeming insect life, a small brown and gray bird—the Phoebe, first of the Flycatcher family to come North. Like many of the early migrants, he travels without his beloved little mate, whom he seems to miss sadly; for he sits disconsolately on a bare twig and calls her name in hoarse, wheezy tones. After she appears, it is pleasant to see their devotion, not only to each other, but to the nesting site. How they journey apart the great distance from South to North and find their own especial bridge or barn year after year, is one of the great mysteries.

Their large, loosely-constructed nest is made of moss and mud, lined with soft grass, hair, or feathers. It is usually infested with bird-lice, as I discovered, to my dismay. It is well not to allow phoebes to build where the lice may become a nuisance.

Like all the soberly-dressed flycatchers, phoebes seek conspicuous perches such as posts or dead branches. They have the family habit of ruffling up their head-feathers into a sort of crest, and of jerking their tails frequently, especially when uttering their note. They make unexpected sallies after insects, which their unusually keen eyes can see from dawn until dark.

Phoebes are among our most useful birds, for they destroy injurious beetles, weevils, flies that annoy cattle and horses, house flies, ants, mosquitoes, wasps, spiders, grasshoppers, and numerous other harmful insects.[59] Their soft brown and gray plumage blends with dull March meadows, with the silver sheen of the brooks they love, and with silken pussy-willows and brown willow-boughs.

THE BLACK PHŒBE

The Black Phoebe is found from Texas west to the Pacific coast. It catches flies persistently and well deserves its family name. In appearance it resembles the slate-colored junco, for it has a dusky head, back, wings, tail, and breast, with a white belly. Professor Beal writes of this bird as follows: “The black phoebe has the same habits as its eastern relative, both as to selection of food and nesting sites, preferring for the latter purpose some structure of man, as a shed, or, better still a bridge over a stream of water, and the preference of the black phoebe for the vicinity of water is very pronounced. One may always be found at a stream or pool and often at a watering-trough by the roadside.

“Careful study of the habits of the bird shows that it obtains a large portion of its food about wet places. While camping beside a stream in California the writer took some pains to observe the habits of the black phoebe. The nesting season was over, and the birds had nothing to do but eat. This they appeared to be doing all the time. When first observed in the morning, at the first glimmer of daylight, a phoebe was always found flitting from rock to rock, although it was so dusky that the bird could hardly be seen. This activity was kept up all day. Even in the evening, when it was so dark that notes were written by the aid of the camp fire, the phoebe was still engaged in its work of collecting, though it was difficult to understand how it could catch insects when there was scarcely light enough to see the bird. Exploration of the stream showed that every portion of it was patrolled by a phoebe, that each one apparently did not range over more than twelve or thirteen rods of water, and that sometimes two or three were in close proximity.”[60]