Bird Guide

Buff-breasted Flycatcher vs Pine Flycatcher

Buff-breasted Flycatcher (Empidonax fulvifrons)

Buff-breasted Flycatcher

Empidonax fulvifrons

Tiny8 gForest

The buff-breasted flycatcher is about 13 cm (5.1 in) long and weighs 6.9 to 9.3 g (0.24 to 0.33 oz). It is the smallest member of genus Empidonax in the US and among the smallest overall. The sexes are alike. Subspecies E. f. pygmaeus is the best known. Adults have dull buffy white lores and a faint dull buffy white eye-ring on an otherwise buffy greenish brown face. Their crown, nape, and upperparts are a darker buffy greenish brown than the face. Their tail is grayish brown with paler grayish white outer webs on the feathers. Voice: The buff-breasted flycatcher's song in Guatemala and Honduras is "a rapid ti'beuu! or pi'dew!" and its call there "a soft, liquid wit". Further north its song is described as chee-lick or chee-lick chou" and its call as "a single pit note".

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: ADJ82 · CC BY 4.0
Pine Flycatcher (Empidonax affinis)

Pine Flycatcher

Empidonax affinis

Tiny11 gForest

The pine flycatcher is 13 to 14.5 cm (5.1 to 5.7 in) long and weighs about 11.5 g (0.41 oz). The sexes are alike. Adults of the nominate subspecies E. a. affinis have pale grayish lores and a whitish tear-shaped eye-ring that becomes a point behind the eye on an otherwise olive to grayish olive head. Their upperparts are also olive to grayish olive. Their tail is dusky. Their wings are mostly dusky, with whitish to buff tips on the coverts that show as two wing bars. The wing's secondaries and tertials have pale yellow edges. Voice: In northern and central Mexico the pine flycatcher's song is "2–4 phrases, prrp, p-wiet, chit p-p-p-reer or p-rip, p-rip, p'rr-ree". There it also has a fast "dri-i-irr" alarm trill and a "chu-wik" call. In Chiapas its song is "chri-k whee-u', chik-wheer or cheenk, cheenk, t-weeree". The species also makes "whip, pwip or whiup" calls.

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Ron Knight from Seaford, East Sussex, United Kingdom · CC BY 2.0

Where you might meet both

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Photos and recordings are credited to their authors under the licence shown. Full profiles: Buff-breasted Flycatcher and Pine Flycatcher.