Eastern Wood-Pewee
Eastern Wood-Pewees are more often heard than seen because of their dull coloration and because they frequent the dense upper canopy of the forest. Their voice is a plaintive pee-ah-weee or pee-weee, falling in pitch on last note. The Eastern Wood-Pewee is a sparrow-sized flycatcher, dull olive-gray above, slightly paler below with 2 whitish wing bars. The Western Wood-Pewee of the western United States is extremely similar but generally darker below. The two species are best distinguished by voice.

The Eastern Wood-Pewee prefers to flycatch in a shady spot from mid to low level of the tree canopy. It primarily eats insects, spiders, millipedes and also a few berries and seeds. It locates its nest on a horizontal limb usually well out from the trunk, 9 to 65 feet above the ground, often on a dead limb in a living tree and camouflages it with spiderwebs and lichens.

The Eastern Wood-Pewee breeds from south-central and southeastern Canada to Gulf Coast and central Florida and winters in the tropics. It prefers forests, open woodlands, orchards and shade trees in parks and along roadsides.
Eastern Wood-Pewee Range Map


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