Contopus sordidulus
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The western wood pewee (Contopus sordidulus) is a small tyrant flycatcher. Adults are gray-olive on the upperparts with light underparts, washed with olive on the breast. They have two wing bars and a dark bill with yellow at the base of the lower mandible. This bird is very similar in appearance to the eastern wood pewee; the two birds were formerly considered to be one species. The call of C. sordidulus is a loud buzzy peeer; the song consists of three rapid descending tsees ending with a descending peeer. The bird is about 5.5–6.3 in (14–16 cm) in length, 0.4–0.5 oz (11–14 g) in weight, and has a wingspan of 10.2 in (26 cm).
Their breeding habitat is open wooded areas in western North America. These birds migrate to South America at the end of summer. The female lays two or three eggs in an open cup nest on a horizontal tree branch or within a tree cavity; California black oak forests are examples of suitable nesting habitat for this species of bird. Both parents feed the young.
They often wait on a perch at a middle height in a tree and fly out to catch insects in flight (hawking), and will also hover to pluck insects from... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toluca | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 2 | Calgary | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 3 | Mexico City | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 4 | Portland | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Ciudad Juárez | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 6 | Puebla | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 7 | Guatemala City | 🇬🇹 Guatemala | |
| 8 | Denver | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | Vancouver | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 10 | Las Vegas | 🇺🇸 United States |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Western Wood-Pewee sighting in Big Bend National Park on a given day, based on 791 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 56th most-seen of the 270 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
August and September
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Western Wood-Pewee in Big Bend National Park on a given day, against under 5% in October to March, the lowest months. Those are among Big Bend National Park's wettest months, with about 50 mm of rain a month against 10 mm in April.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Western Wood-Pewee sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
8th of 65
Of the 65 parks where we can rate Western Wood-Pewee sightings, Big Bend National Park ranks 8th at about 10%. The best odds are in Yosemite National Park (United States, about 40%), Guadalupe Mountains National Park (United States, about 30%) and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (United States, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Western Wood-Pewee is recorded against all the birds logged in Big Bend National Park (791 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
