blue gray gnatcatchers | Best Life Birding- Birdwatching Tours

By Sally Siko

A sure sign that spring is here is marked by the arrival of the Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.
I spotted several this morning while birding near my home in central North Carolina.
Happily these little guys were super curious about my presence in the woods so they kept flying in close to get a look at me. Normally Gnatcatchers are kinda hard to photograph since they tend to zip around at a zillion miles per hour but not these two lol!
Both birds actually moved through the brush at a slower than usual pace often pausing to eyeball an insect or to inspect their surroundings which led to some excellent photo opportunities for me. 🙂

Among the smallest birds in North America, only measuring around 4.5 inches (11 cm) in length.
What they lack in size they make up for tenfold in energy! They are highly active birds, constantly flitting about in search of insects to eat. Gnatcatchers are known for their agility and can even hover briefly while catching insects in mid-air.
Again, despite their pint size, they’ve got a surprisingly loud and complex song too which makes them easy to locate in the field. Their vocalizations include a series of high-pitched, nasal notes often described as sounding like “spee-spee-spee.”

The Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are just now making their way up the east coast of the United States heading north for their breeding season ahead.
They are found throughout all 100 counties of North Carolina, and will stick around the Tarheel state through mid October.
Be in the lookout for them this summer and enjoy every second with them!

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

By: Sally Siko

I was thrilled to spot this pair of Blue gray Gnatcatchers while birding with friends earlier this week near Old Bynum Bridge in Pittsboro, NC.
We stood under the tree for several minutes watching the pair bring materials to one another as they shaped their tiny nest.
The Gnatcatchers worked tirelessly to build up the fragile cup shaped structure, stopping only briefly to grab a snack in between supply flights.

I also found several more Gnatcatchers while birding in Murrells Inlet SC too and they were just as entertaining to watch as the pair in Pittsboro.
So much energy wrapped up into one small body, they can be tough to photograph yet it was a real joy to encounter them while they searched for a six (or eight) legged snack in the leaves 🙂
Aren’t they sweet?

Although they will hunt for all kinds of insects they don’t actually eat many gnats (unfortunately, lol!) as one would assume their name implies.
In fact, their favorite food are spiders and lucky for them we’ve got plenty of those here in the Tarheel state for them to find.
Hovering in mid air like tiny helicopters, Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers will glean for arachnids in the mid to upper canopies of trees, raids insects from spiderwebs, and (as seen in these photos) are even known to use their webs as nesting material to bind tiny pieces of lichen together.

These lovely little ones started to arrive in NC a couple of weeks ago and will stick around until mid September. The best spots to find Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are in habitats containing a mix of deciduous forests and wetlands, ponds, lakes and rivers.
They are particularly active in the morning hours as they need to make up for the loss of calories spent while sleeping by hunting for insects as soon as the sun rises.

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my beloved full frame 50MP beast, the mighty @canonusa #5Ds