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To the Beauty of Birds

The Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus) is a passerine bird. It is a large tyrant flycatcher; sometimes its genus Pitangus is considered monotypic, with the lesser kiskadee (P. lictor) separated in Philohydor.

It breeds in open woodland with some tall trees, including cultivation and around human habitation, mainly found in Belize, and from the Lower Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas and northern Mexico south to Uruguay, but also it occurs all over Venezuela and Brazil (specially the central and south-southeastern regions), Paraguay and central Argentina, the Guyana coastline, and on Trinidad. It was introduced to Bermuda in 1957, and to Tobago in about 1970.

Adult great kiskadees are one of the largest of the tyrant flycatchers. They can measure from 8.3 to 10.6 inches in length and weigh 1.8 to 2.4 oz). The head is black with a strong white eye stripe and a concealed yellow crown stripe. This rare photo (3437) shows the normally hidden yellow crown feather extended, possibly as a mating ritual. This photo was taken n Huatulco, Mexico.

The upperparts are brown, and the wings and tail are brown with usually strong rufous fringes.

The black bill is short and thick. The similar boat-billed flycatcher (Megarynchus pitangua) has a massive black bill, an olive-brown back and very little rufous in the tail and wings. A few other tyrant flycatchers – some not very closely related – share a similar color pattern, but these species are markedly smaller.

The call is an exuberant BEE-tee-WEE, and the bird has an onomatopoeic name in different languages and countries: In Brazil its popular name is bem-te-vi and in Spanish-speaking countries it is often bien-te-veo ("I see you well!") and sometimes shortened to benteveo.

The great kiskadee is a common, noisy and conspicuous bird. It is almost omnivorous, and hunts like a shrike or flycatcher, waiting on an open perch high in a tree to sally out to catch insects in flight, or to pounce upon rodents and similar small vertebrates. It will also take prey and some fruit from vegetation by gleaning and jumping for it or ripping it off in mid-hover, and occasionally dives for fish or tadpoles in shallow water, making it one of the few fishing passerines. They like to hunt on their own or in pairs, and though they might be expected to make good use of prey flushed by but too large for the smaller birds of the understory, they do not seem to join mixed-species feeding flocks very often. When they do, they hunt in the familiar manner. Such opportunistic feeding behavior makes it one of the commonest birds in urban areas around Latin America; its flashy belly and its shrill call make it one of the most conspicuous.

The nest, built by both sexes in a tree or telephone pole, is a ball of sticks with a side entrance. The typical clutch is two or three cream eggs lightly blotched with reddish brown. They are incubated by the female.

Photos in the 6000 series were taken at the ASA Wright Nature Center, Trinidad. 642 and 644 show a male and female “arguing”.

Great Kiskadee