Polioptila caerulea
blue-grey gnatcatcher

The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher ranges over most of the United States east of the Mississippi, excluding Maine. It can also be found throughout Mexico, Cuba, Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico. During the winter, gnatcatchers migrate to Central and South America.

Gnatcatchers enjoy a wide range of woodland habitats, from shrublands to mature forests. They tend to avoid coniferous forests and concentrate largely along habitat edges. Some of their habitats include floodplain forests, lakeside habitats, pinyon-juniper woodlands, and arid, subtropical shrubbery.

Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are small birds, with a comparatively long tails. They are bluish-grey above and white below. The color of the bases of the wings blends into the black coloring at the tips. The tail is black with white streaks interspersed. There are prominent thin white rings around each eye.

With short mothlike flights, the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher prefers to hop from place to place, either on the groung or along branches. Aggressive behaviors include posturing with the tail raised and audible bill clapping. Gnatcatchers are territorial, displaying these actions toward same-sex intruders. Parents often attack fledglings from the first brood of the summer if they interfere with the rearing of the second brood.

Gnatcatchers eat mainly small insects and spiders. They search for food by moving up and down through the outer branches of trees or shrubs. Their preferred foods are (in order from highest amount to lowest): Homoptera (cicadas, aphids), Hemiptera, Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (mothsl, butterflies), Diptera (flies), Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps), and Araneae (spiders).

Gnatcatchers have no special status; however, few data have been collected on the effects of human activity on their populations. Their numbers seem to be rising, indicating that subtropical deforestation is having little effect on these birds, which winter throughout shrub-based habitats in Mexico. Management may be needed for microhabitats in the U.S. (such as stream valleys and canopy openings), rather than large areas.

Gnatcatchers are migratory, with no distinctions in migratory schedules based on age or sex. They leave there wintering sites by mid-March. They remain at their breeding site until shortly after the young have become fully independent, usually in mid-August.