Eastern Phoebe

Sayornis phoebe · Flycatchers

Eastern Phoebe

Everglades National Park, 6 February 2026

An Eastern Phoebe on a bare perch in the Everglades in February, empty-billed and watching. Phoebes breed across the East and Canada, near water and under bridges, and winter in the southern states; the ones in Florida in February will be back in New York by March.

Phoebes hunt from a fixed perch, sallying out after passing insects and returning to the same twig, and the constant dipping of the tail while they sit is the mark that identifies one at a distance. The first bird ever banded in North America was a phoebe, a silver thread tied round the leg by John James Audubon in 1804 to see if the same birds came back to the same nest. They did.

Eastern Phoebe with a moth

Everglades National Park, 6 February 2026

An Eastern Phoebe in the Everglades in February with a small moth in its bill, taken on the wing and brought back to this perch to beat against the branch before swallowing. Phoebes breed across the eastern United States and Canada and winter in the South, and they are one of the few flycatchers content well south of their breeding range in winter, willing to perch low in tangled scrub rather than working an open sightline from a wire.

The plain grey-brown upperparts, dark head, and complete lack of wing bars or an eye-ring are enough on their own. Nothing else winters this far south with quite that combination, and beating a catch against the branch is standard practice for anything with wings that might otherwise make an escape attempt half-swallowed.