Great Crested Flycatcher

Great Crested Flycatcher exhibit dynamic daily activities, predominantly hunting from lofty perches with keen vision and quick, agile maneuvers to capture flying insects in mid-air. They are also known for their acrobatic skills, sometimes crashing through foliage to snap up prey. Their mating rituals involve males impressively swooping down to females and demonstrating persistence with hovering displays. Defending territory and their mates is a serious affair for great Crested Flycatcher, as they engage in a variety of threat displays and even physical confrontations to deter intruders. Despite their preference for edge habitats, great Crested Flycatcher remain resilient to brood parasitism from species like the Brown-headed Cowbird, likely due to their aggressive nature and cavity nesting habits.

The Great Crested flycatcher habitat selection may vary slightly with different populations, but can be most often found breeding in deciduous forests and at edges of clearings and mixed woodlands. They also show a tendency to favour landscapes with open canopy, such as second growth forests or woodlands that have been subjected to selective cutting, and also appears to avoid coniferous dominant habitats such as the Canadian boreal forest. The summer breeding ground covers all eastern, mid-eastern and parts of central United States, including Northern and Southern parts of Florida, parts of Texas, central Oklahoma, and eastern and central North Dakota. In Canada, it is limited to southern Manitoba, extreme southern portions of the St-Lawrence forest of Ontario, Quebec, northeast Nova Scotia and parts of Prince Edward Island. Its winter range includes most of southern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula, and extends along the costs of Central America. In southern peninsular Florida, Great Crested flycatcher can be found year-round.