Willow Flycatcher

Adults have brown-olive upperparts, darker on the wings and tail, with whitish underparts; they have an indistinct white eye ring, white wing bars and a small bill. The breast is washed with olive-gray. The upper part of the bill is gray; the lower part is orangish.

Their breeding habitat is deciduous thickets, especially willows and often near water, across the United States and southern Canada. They make a cup nest in a vertical fork in a shrub or tree. These neotropical birds migrate to Mexico and Central America, and in small numbers as far south as Ecuador in South America, often selecting winter habitat near water. Willow flycatchers travel approximately 1,500–8,000 km (930–4,970 mi) each way between wintering and breeding areas. This bird's song is a sneezed fitz-bew. The call is a dry whit.

Willow flycatchers are generalist insectivores, and the insects which comprise their diet vary substantially across different habitats. For example, flies of the order Diptera made up the majority of adult willow flycatcher diets in Ontario, Canada, but only composed 10.6% of the diet of California flycatchers, who instead favor Lepidopterans, mayflies, and snakeflies. They are "sit-and-wait" predators, remaining on a perch near the top of a shrub and flying out to catch insects on the wing, but are also reported to glean insects off of leaves and stems.