Black Phoebe with a butterfly
Sayornis nigricans
Black Phoebe · San Diego Botanic Garden · 7 March 2026
A Black Phoebe with a butterfly in its bill, taken over the flowerbeds of a San Diego garden. Phoebes hunt from a fixed perch near water and return to it, over and over, and in a garden like this one they work the borders as readily as the pond.
A phoebe's usual prey is small and unremarkable - flies, gnats, whatever is hawking low over water - so a butterfly this size is an unusually substantial catch, likely one of the American Ladies working the chamomile nearby. Black Phoebes are among the easier flycatchers to predict and watch, because the perch is always the same.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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