Piratic Flycatcher

[DAVID A LEATHERMAN]

A big thanks to Dan Maynard for finding and reporting this CO 1^st State Record bird!

 

Congrats to Joey Kellner for his 500^th CO species and everybody else (including Duane Nelson with ??? species) who has had the fortune to visit Wray and see it.

 

What is this bird eating?  BOW Cornell account for Piratic Flycatcher says, “insects and fruit, with adults being entirely fruit-eaters (frugivorous)”.  The two obvious fruits available at Stalker Lake SWA are those of Russian-olive and Virginia Creeper.  The bird seems to sit up in bare Russian-olive branches a lot.  It apparently doesn’t do so to flycatch but rather to just “chill” or digest.  After bouts in bare branches, it goes down into the olives, presumably to feed.  Olives are abundant, but is that what it is eating?  Virginia creeper vines at this site often climb up into the olives, and they, too, are full of purple fruits.  If anyone gets a photo of the bird with something in its beak, I’d love to see it.  Here are photos taken in the last few days at the Piratic Flycatcher site along the north side of Stalker Lake (Russian-olive on left, Virginia Creeper on right).

 

    

 

 

Currently, there is a SECOND Piratic Flycatcher in Phoenix, AZ that my friend Dr. David Steingraeber says has been wonderfully documented in eBird (Cristina Avila) eating the fruits of Chinese Pistache Tree (Pistachia chinensis).  Photo below showing fruits from Stanford University.

 

 

And, Dave Steingraeber also informs me, there’s a THIRD Piratic Flycatcher on a recent checklist at Sawgrass Lake Park (near St. Petersburg FL) by a former prominent Colorado birder, Bill Kaempfer.  No mention of what it might be eating.

 

Every CO birder ought to give Russian-olives a taste test.  The pulp birds are after is either bland or mildly sweet, like weak watermelon.  Don’t eat the pit, obviously.

 

Again, nice job Dan Maynard.

 

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins

[Adrian Lakin]

Hi Dave,

We saw it eating Virginia Creeper berries on Monday. I don't think anyone got pictures though.

Adrian Lakin, 

Mead,CO

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[Peter Gent]

Dave, 

Last Sunday morning between 11:25 and noon the Flycatcher was not in Russian olives but in deciduous trees immediately north of the lake. It was sitting on prominent perches and then making sallies after insects and frequently going back to the same perch: peewee like although the sallies were mostly shorter than a peewee. Of course, I have no idea what it was catching but it was being successful.  

Cheers,  Peter Gent.  

On Wed, Sep 23, 2026, 3:07 PM DAVID A LEATHERMAN <daleat...@msn.com> wrote:

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[Eric DeFonso]

Hi Dave,

I lucked into this shot, for what it's worth. See attached.

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Eric DeFonso
Boulder County, CO

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