No-nonsense bird
No one likes a bully, but we sure like to root for the underdog. Such is the paradox of the eastern kingbird. It is definitely the neighborhood troublemaker, but you have to smile when this eight-inch bird sends hawks and ravens on their way in a big hurry.
Kingbirds are known for their ferocity, especially in the breeding season. They are no-nonsense birds that just want to get on with the job and be left alone. But if provoked, watch out!
Their family name, Tyrannidae, was given for a reason. The kingbirds, whose common name is descriptive of attitude rather than appearance, are the dominant members of the group we commonly call the “tyrant flycatchers.” The genus name for kingbirds is “Tyrannus,” and the species name of the eastern kingbird is “Tyrannus tyrannus.”
That makes this species not only a king of the flycatchers, but also a tyrant of the tyrants. For once we have a name that really means something, although the “eastern” part of its common name isn’t terribly original.
As you might guess, the eastern kingbird is the only kingbird found in the eastern United States and Canada. Well, the only one except for the gray kingbird, a larger, rougher looking version of the eastern, found in Florida. There are, in addition, several vagrant kingbird species that occasionally appear in the East.
To add to the confusion in its common name, the eastern kingbird is also found in the West. Its scientific name, though, Tyrannus tyrannus, has the bird pegged.
Its close cousin and our other North Idaho kingbird, the western kingbird, also has a common name that means something only in a relative sense. And in the West there are several kingbird species that look frustratingly the same.
Mostly found in the Southwest, the kingbirds called Cassin’s, Couch’s, tropical and thick-billed, along with our western kingbird, form a group that has distinctive lemon-yellow underparts. They can make for tricky identifications where some of the species overlap.
While on this naming thing here with the kingbirds, I must say that the others, not the eastern or western, are not badly named. Cassin and Couch were influential ornithologists of the mid-1800’s and deserve the tribute. The thick-billed certainly does have a uniquely thick bill for a kingbird.
And the tropical kingbird does have a primarily Mexican distribution, but then so do several of the others, so I guess its name isn’t much better than eastern or western. In fact, a few tropical kingbirds are found each fall along the Washington Coast. It’s anything but tropical at Gray’s Harbor in December.
The most elegant of the kingbirds, in both name and form, is the scissor-tailed flycatcher. No, I don’t know why it isn’t named the scissor-tailed “kingbird.” However, what an image the name conjures up. What a sight to behold on a wire or in flight on some otherwise featureless prairie.
Of our eight Tyrannus kingbirds in the United States and Canada, the eastern, at first glance, would seem to be the least distinctive. From a distance its silhouette is identical to that of the western kingbird. At closer range it seems rather plain in black and white – nothing like the bright yellow and soft gray of the western kingbird.
The field guide descriptions give it a black head and tail, a slate gray back and white underparts with a bit of pale gray across the breast. Not much there to get excited about. But see an eastern kingbird up close or in flight and you’ll see the classic beauty always associated with formal wear of black, accented with white.
From the side you see conspicuous areas of white as if the bird was wearing a starched collar and shirt under an open black coat – a dress coat with “tails.” In flight, though, is where the distinctiveness of the eastern kingbird stands out. Along the back edge of its black, fanned tail is a wide white band, a terminal band in field guide parlance.
It’s spectacular, and it’s unique among the perching birds, the passerines. It speaks of elegance. It captures your sight and rivets you to that part of the bird.
But once duly impressed, don’t hang around for it to speak, for if you do, you will think the eastern kingbird a king-fraud. It would be as if Henry Higgins had dressed up and taken Eliza Doolittle to the ball before teaching her how to speak (sorry, but I love that play!).
These are the adjectives used to describe its song: sharp, harsh, abrupt, rasping, sputtering, grating. Its call is high-pitched, buzzy, and phonetically spelled “dzeet.” None of the flycatchers are known for their song, but kingbirds are among the worst.
But that’s OK, these are no-nonsense birds. They may look elegant, but they are hard workers, out there hunting bugs from dawn to dusk, aggressively chasing away birds 30 times their own size by weight. And they bring this no-nonsense approach to raising a family too. Well, perhaps a little nonsense.
Kingbirds can’t sing, but wow, they can fly! Where a meadowlark or a warbler will sing to establish territory and attract a mate, kingbirds perform flying maneuvers that include tumbles and backward flips, and they have a little red pop-up crest that they show at no other time. But then it’s back to business.
Of course the main business of summer is to raise a family. Once the maneuvers and the pop-ups are out of the way, things get serious. As you’d expect from such cranky birds, kingbirds are generally solitary. Even when nesting, eastern kingbirds are usually perching alone, flycatching alone and dive-bombing alone.
A pair may nest together year after year at the same site, but it’s actually fidelity to the site and not to each other that unites them. That’s not very romantic, but again, these are no-nonsense birds. They arrive in the nesting area long after most other migrants and they are among the first to leave. That’s because kingbirds are not only no-nonsense, but they are also practical.
They come here for the abundant bugs with which to feed their young, so they wait until the bugs are truly abundant. Then, as soon as the young are raised, eastern kingbirds are off for South America. They leave in August to make sure that they are gone long before a cold snap can make their bugs disappear.
So, breeding takes place in early June and the young leave the nest about now. The parents will care for the fledglings for another month, then everyone heads south. Once nesting is over, the parents go their separate ways in migration, and they probably winter in different areas. They may not be very sentimental, but, as I mentioned before, they are eminently practical.
While in North Idaho, eastern kingbirds work hard. In their day-to-day business of feeding themselves and their family, it’s a constant grind of back-and-forth, back-and-forth. They watch from a prominent perch until they spot just the right big bug, they fly out and catch it, and then they return to the perch to eat it – a practice called “hawking.”
Over and over and over, the cycle is repeated throughout the day. If things are slow in the air, they can hover over leaves, picking off smaller bugs. And then, at times, business may require military action. When necessary, kingbirds can turn into miniature F-16s to do aerial battle.
You’ve probably seen a bunch of smaller birds “mobbing” a predator to drive it away. But you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a kingbird attack from above and behind, land on the predator’s shoulders, and commence to pull on feathers at the back of its head. Kingbirds can be a literal “pain in the neck.”
When it comes to the business of choosing their summer home, eastern kingbirds like things a little wet. They place their nests and do most of their insect hunting – flycatching – near water. The western kingbird, on the other hand, prefers hotter, more arid areas.
That’s probably why we have two such closely related, and potentially competitive, species in the same general area. I have only seen eastern and western kingbirds together in migration, never in breeding season.
Eastern kingbirds I can count on seeing at Fernan marsh and around Thompson Lake, but never on the prairie. Western kingbirds I routinely see on the Rathdrum Prairie, but never in marshy areas. The two species demand the same resources, perform the same behaviors, and have lifestyles that are otherwise identical.
So it’s true that eastern and western kingbirds both hunt for the same type of prey and both do so over open areas, but they manage to coexist by sticking to wet versus dry habitats. They agree to avoid conflict by simply avoiding contact. Otherwise, with two such pugnacious species, it would be constant warfare. Instead, each is secure in its own area.
If available, an eastern kingbird pair will make their nest in the branches of a tree. If not available, a post or a stump will do, often located in the middle of a swamp or marsh. Eastern kingbirds aren’t too picky about where they place their nests – they are, remember, practical. After all, who would dare disturb it?
If the nest parasite, the brown-headed cowbird, should chance to lay one of its eggs in a kingbird nest, the egg will soon be either dumped out or destroyed. A little sparrow may be seen raising a cowbird chick twice its own size, but not a kingbird. Again, these are no-nonsense birds. There’s no welfare society among tyrants.
Once the business of the summer is complete, kingbirds are on their way. There’s no reason to dawdle. Kingbirds come north for a reason, and when the job is done, it’s time to move on. They didn’t, after all, come here for the scenery. But once the job is done, something strange happens. Kingbirds suddenly lighten up.
At that time in their year, our late summer, and until they return the next summer, eastern kingbirds radically change their moods. They suddenly become sociable and migrate in large flocks. And they remain sociable throughout their time in the tropics.
Then, once they get back home, somewhere in South America, they swear off insects and become fruit eaters. Is it the insects that make them so crabby? I’ve tried high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets and they made me pretty grumpy. Maybe that’s nature’s secret. If the tyrants of the world ate more fruit, maybe this would be a more peaceful place.