Vermilion Flycatchers an Eye-Catching Bird

With over 400 species, tyrant flycatchers are the most diverse family of birds not only in South and North America but in the entire world. However, their diversity for the most part does not extend to their color and markings as the vast majority of these New World flycatchers are mostly a nondescript drab combination of browns, grays, and yellows and are without "unmistakable" physical features. Some obvious exceptions in color or other outstanding characteristics to that are ornate, scissor-tailed,and social flycatchers and Great Kiskadees. However, for me not so arguably, the most striking, distinctive, and spectacular is the relatively diminutive vermilion flycatcher, particularly the males.

By chance I “discovered” vermilion flycatchers a few years ago just prior to my becoming a birder. Virtually every time that I was taking a hike on a certain trail from a distance of about 100-150 feet I saw this small bright red bird perched on a post protruding from a pond near my home in the Western Central Highlands of Mexico in the small town of Churintzio, Michoacan. Oftentimes, I observed that it would over and over again briefly leave its perch and fly for a few seconds and more often than not return to that same post. I had no idea what it was as I only knew that it was not the very common for our area house finch whose adult males are varying degrees of red. After seeing it more than a dozen times my curiosity was really peaked as this was one gorgeous and behaviorally interesting bird so I looked it up on the Internet and eventually learned what it was. From that point forward, I was not only hooked on Vermilion flycatchers but also birdwatching as that one little bird taught me that there was so much I needed to learn about nature.

“Vermies” as my wife, Maria, and myself excitedly and affectionately call them when we see them-which as area “residents” is quite often- are stocky approximately 6" birds weighing about a half of an ounce and in Mexico are sometimes very appropriately referred to as “brasitas de fuego”/ little coals of fire. They are one of only a few species of flycatchers that are sexually dimorphic, meaning that there are distinct external differences between the sexes. The adult males are astoundingly gorgeous with their bright scarlet crowns, throat, and underparts, a distinctive black “Zorro” mask-like eye-line, gray/dark brown to black backs, wings, and tails and a black straight short bill. Lovely but less distinctive, the females are mostly grayish brown with streaks of white with a wash of salmon or yellow on the belly and display a white eye-line.

These monogamous songbirds range from Southeastern California through the Southwest U.S. to Western Texas down into Mexico and Central America and locally in South America. Interestingly, occurring in the Galapagos Archipelago there are also known as Galapagos and Darwin’s flycatchers. Singly or in pairs, they are most often found in open arid or semi-arid terrain near riparian areas at streams, ponds, or lakes with scrub and brush vegetation.

Typically they are seen conspicuously perching at low to mid-levels on bushes and trees with their tails distinctively dipped. A breeding male will perch about 90% of the time during daylight hours. I also see them very often perching on fences, gates, posts, and wires normally near a body of fresh water. Their prey consists largely of flying insects like flies, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, and in some areas honey bees.

Just as male vermilions are physically more striking than are the females, so are they behaviorally. When wanting to mate the flashy male will frequently bring to its intended female partner a “showy” insect, frequently a colorful butterfly. Highly territorial, to signal that the area is taken to both its competitors and its intended mate, the male will acrobatically fly about sixty feet high and while singing/calling with rapidly beating wings will then flutter downward. Their song is a series of rapid chirps( “pip-pip-pip-pip”) repeated about ten times followed by a trill (“peeeeeent”); while perched their calls may continue into the night in an attempt to attract females. Even when not trying to show off for a female, the male will often sing in flight. Moreover, I have learned that one easy way from a distance to identify vermilion flycatchers, both males and females, is that when foraging for prey while in flight they will persistently hover.

Very common in their range, vermilion flycatchers are listed as being a species of “least concern” as they are not considered to be endangered, especially in Mexico and Central and South America. Quite unfortunately, in my part of Mexico I have seen in pitifully small cages colorful or attractive songbirds like streak-backed orioles, male Northern cardinals, house finches, and Northern mockingbirds that are captured illegally being sold as “pets.” Fortunately, I have never seen one of our precious vermies in such a barbarically inhumane captive circumstance. That is more than likely due to the fact that, unlike the cardinals, in captivity this most beautiful of flycatchers found in North America (and perhaps even South America) invariably loses its color. Hence, that is just one reason that the next time and, hopefully, every time thereafter that we go birdwatching together, I should hear Maria accurately, appreciatively, and repeatedly call out “vermie, vermie, vermie!”