Laura Erickson's For the Birds

One of the first birds to light out for the territory as autumn approaches is the Eastern Kingbird. During this period of warmth and abundance, thoughts of winter are far from our minds. And I suspect they’re equally far from a kingbird’s. As a matter of fact, kingbirds have little or no concept of winter at all. They migrate while insects are abundant so they’ll have an easy time fueling up all along their long flight, and are a rather late spring migrant, not venturing north until their supply of insects is ensured.

Kingbirds migrate about as far as a one-ounce Minnesota bird would care to go, flapping all the way to South America. Most stop in Peru and Bolivia but some make it all the way to Argentina.

English painter Mark Catesby visited America in 1712 and painted a kingbird for a natural history of the colonies. Catesby emphasized the red crown feathers, though those are seldom seen. Interestingly, he didn’t illustrate or mention one of the easiest field marks for kingbirds–the tail has a clean white tip. Catesby called the bird the ‘’tyrant” for its feisty ways. He wrote:

The courage of this little bird is singular… I have seen one of them fix on the back of an eagle, and persecute him so, that he has turned on his back into various postures in the air, in order to get rid of him, and at last was forced to alight on top of the next tree, from whence he dared not move, till the little tyrant was tired, or thought fit to leave him.

I personally witnessed a kingbird, all by itself, take off and chase a Bald Eagle that was flying high overhead. The little kingbird darted ferociously at the eagle’s head and back from above, and actually made the eagle, who outweighed it at least 80 to 1, turn tail and head back where it came from.

Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish scientist who developed the system of scientific names, chose his name for the kingbird based on Catesby’s account; the official scientific name is Tyrannus tyrannus. But if Catesby had encountered his first kingbirds on their wintering grounds, he’d have certainly called them something else. Eastern kingbirds undergo a complete change of personality when they start migrating, transforming themselves from independent, somewhat solitary insectivores into cooperative, meek vegetarians eating little but fruit. Robert Ridgely wrote in “The Birds of South· America:

Those familiar with Eastern Kingbird on its breeding grounds will hardly recognize it in South America. Here it becomes almost eerily silent and is largely frugivorous, though sallying for insects on occasion, and is often found in large compact flocks which sometimes descend en masse to strip a tree of fruit.

Ridgely describes the tropical migration: “Diurnal migrating flocks can be seen passing over the forest canopy, pausing along the shores of lakes and rivers.” That is what we see in August here in Minnesota, too. On pleasant mornings in the first hours after dawn, we can often see small groups of kingbirds making their way south. How can we recognize them in flight when their pure white underside is shaded from above? They tend to fly fairly low, and from the side they.appear flatter than other birds. If you pay attention to the flight techniques of various species you’ll notice how different groups flap differently. Kingbirds have a distinctive way of snapping their wings back, rather than pulling them up and down, that accentuates this flat appearance.

Because insects and fruits are most abundant near water, many birds follow shorelines, including kingbirds. Park yourself in a lovely spot along a lake or river to watch for them. You can’t lose. Even if you don’t spot a kingbird, you’re bound to see some of the myriad late summer birds attracted to water, and if you’re lucky, you’ll spot Tyrannus tyrannus, the tyrant of all tyrants.