Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Adult birds have pale gray heads and upper parts, light underparts, salmon-pink flanks and undertail coverts, and dark gray wings. Axillars and patch on underwing coverts are red. Their extremely long, forked tails, which are black on top and white on the underside, are characteristic and unmistakable. At maturity, the male may be up to 15 in (38 cm) in length, while the female's tail is up to 30% shorter. The wingspan is 38.1 cm (15.0 in) and the weight is up to 43 g (1.5 oz). Immature birds are duller in color and have shorter tails. A lot of these birds have been reported to be more than 40 cm (16 in).

Their breeding habitat is open shrubby country with scattered trees in the south-central states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, western portions of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri west to far eastern New Mexico and northeastern Mexico. Reported sightings record occasional stray visitors as far north as southern Canada and Upstate New York, as far east as Florida and Georgia, and in the West Indies. They migrate through Texas and eastern Mexico to their winter non-breeding range, from southern Mexico to Panama. Pre-migratory roosts and flocks flying south may contain as many as 1000 birds.

In the summer, scissor-tailed flycatchers feed mainly on insects (grasshoppers, robber-flies, and dragonflies), which they may catch by waiting on a perch and then flying out to catch them in flight (hawking). For additional food in the winter they will also eat some berries.