04/01/2026
QUIZ ANSWER: When faced with an unfamiliar species, try using cues like size and shape, color pattern, behavior, and habitat to narrow it down. The mystery bird has an upright posture and seems to have caught an insect, suggesting it's a flycatcher. Its hefty size and large head make it look like a kingbird, although it has a very long tail. Ten species of these big, flashy flycatchers occur in the U.S., and eight have been recorded in Louisiana—Tropical, Couch’s, Cassin’s, Western, Eastern, and Gray Kingbirds, along with Scissor-tailed and Fork-tailed Flycatchers. The first four kingbirds are all predominantly yellow and gray, and like Eastern and Gray Kingbirds, they all have a much shorter tail than the quiz bird. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, which breeds in Louisiana and nearby states, has a pale gray head, salmon-pink flanks, and extensive white in its long tail. That leaves FORK-TAILED FLYCATCHER, with its black head and wings, white underparts, and tremendously long forked tail, as this week’s quiz bird. This spectacular flycatcher breeds from southern Mexico to Argentina; the southernmost populations are migratory, and small numbers regularly overshoot their nonbreeding grounds and stray north to the United States and Canada. To get started with learning how to identify kingbirds and other groups of flycatchers, check out this flycatcher tip sheet: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/identifying-flycatchers-how-to-get-started/ Thanks to Dania Sanchez for sharing this photo with eBird and the Macaulay Library archive.
