The black-and-white summer visitor of ancient oak woods — the male pied flycatcher is crisply black above and white below with a bold white forehead patch; the female is brown and white; they arrive from West Africa in late April to breed in old oak trees and nest boxes, making sallying flights to catch insects and raising a brood before departing in late summer.
The oak wood visitor
Pied flycatchers have a very specific habitat requirement in Britain — mature, high-canopy sessile oak woodland in the upland west. The classic locations are the ancient oakwoods of mid-Wales (the Dyfi and Tywi valleys), the Lake District’s western oak woods, and the Dartmoor valley oakwoods. Nest boxes erected in appropriate woodland have dramatically increased populations in managed reserves. The birds arrive in late April and depart by late August.
Foraging style
True to their name, pied flycatchers catch flying insects from a perch. They sit still on a branch, then launch into brief aerial sorties to snatch flies, moths, and beetles in mid-air before returning to the same or nearby perch. They also glean insects from foliage and the ground, which distinguishes them from spotted flycatchers that exclusively catch prey in the air. The main prey in Britain are caterpillars taken during the peak of oak leaf flush in May.
Nest box success
Pied flycatchers readily use nest boxes, and long-term nest box schemes in Welsh and Lakeland oak woods have provided much of what is known about their breeding biology. Boxes with a 28–32 mm entrance hole placed on mature trees in high canopy woodland are occupied preferentially. Studies using nest box data have shown that pied flycatcher arrival dates are advancing in response to climate change, though not always in synchrony with the caterpillar peak.
Migration
Pied flycatchers make a remarkable annual migration to West Africa — crossing the Sahara twice each year. Ringing recoveries have identified wintering grounds in Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Birds increase body weight dramatically before migration, converting fat reserves for the journey. The southward migration in autumn is more diffuse than spring, with birds drifting through lowland Britain before the Saharan crossing.
Find more birds by letter
Pied Flycatcher starts with P and ends with R. Browse other birds along the same letter.
Birds that contain a letter from "Pied Flycatcher":