Wild Facts About The Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher
Quick Facts About Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers
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Scientific Name |
Polioptila caerulea |
|
Common Name(s) |
Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher |
|
Animal Type |
Songbird |
|
Diet |
Insects gleaned from the surface of trees and shrubs, especially caterpillars, beetles, katydids, flies, and spiders. |
|
Found |
Found year-round in North Carolina in the southeastern part of the state and during the summer throughout North Carolina, except in the highest mountain elevations. Look for them in open woods and thickets, in brush along meadow edges. These birds flit quickly from branch to branch and rarely stay in one place for more than a second or two. |
|
Description |
Blue-gray above, white below, black tail with white band along outer edge. White eye ring. In summer, male Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers develop a black stripe over their eyes. |
Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher Images
Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher. Polioptila caerulea. Bird. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher. Polioptila caerulea. Bird. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
Fun Facts About Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers
Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers Need Trees
- Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers live in and along the edges of forests populated with broadleaf trees.
- They prefer to nest in trees with dense leaves that best hide their nests from direct predators like Eastern Rat Snakes (Pantherophis quadrivittatus), American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos), Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata), Red-Shouldered Hawks (Buteo lineatus), and Common Grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) and nest parasites, like the dreaded Brown-Headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater).
- Favorite nest trees include Sugar Maple (Acer saccarum), White Oak (Quercus alba), and Black Walnut (Jugulan nigra).
- Good nest sites for Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers seem to meet the following criteria:
- Dense leaf cover
- Located high in trees
- Far from habitat edges (Kershner, Bollinger, and Helton 2001, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3082920).
- Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers need all the help they can get from tall trees that grow deep in the forest and provide dense leaf cover.
- Their eggs and nests fall victim to predators more often than not.
- In a study of nest-site selection and re-nesting, 74 out of 93 (80%) of Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher nests failed (Kershner, Bollinger, and Helton 2001, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3082920.
Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers Find A Way
- Despite the Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers’ rather grim nest success rates, these birds manage to keep their population numbers up.
- A study that researched estimated density of migrant and breeding birds found that:
- Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers were one of the six most abundant breeding species in the study,
- These six bird species collectively accounted for an estimated >5800 individual birds (Somershoe, Twedt, and Reid 2006, https://doi.org/10.1093/condor/108.3.691
Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers Can Hover
- Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers are one of the few birds that can hover.
- While definitely unable to hover with the skill of hummingbirds, Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers can hold themselves aloft in the same general position for short periods of time.
- Most of the time, Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers dart from twig to twig and snap their insect and spider prey while perched.
- But they can and do resort to hovering when they would be otherwise unable to reach a choice morsel of food.
