Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher

Yes. Nothing else in North Louisiana looks remotely similar. Breeding range in North Louisiana sticks to the western edge of North Louisiana and passes through the rest of the region during migration. The core breeding range sits in Oklahoma and Texas, and North Louisiana catches the eastern fringe

Pearl gray above, white breast, and salmon-pink wash on the flanks, sides, and wing linings that deepens to vivid orange-red in the underwing during flight. The head sits pale gray. The wings show dark flight feathers against the lighter gray body. And then the tail, which accounts for more of the bird's total length than any other feature and makes the scissor-tailed flycatcher identifiable at distances where color can't be resolved at all. The silhouette alone, a small body with an absurdly long forked tail trailing behind it, belongs to one species and one species only. Females and juveniles wear shorter tails and less intense pink, which occasionally causes confusion with western kingbirds or other gray flycatchers at a distance. An adult male in full breeding condition, perched on a fence post with nine inches of tail streaming behind, does not cause confusion with anything. The bird announced what it was before you finished raising the binoculars.

What's on the Menu

Grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, and whatever other large insects the open country produces. The scissor-tailed flycatcher feeds from exposed perches, fence posts, and utility wires, launching into the air to grab a passing insect and returning to the perch. The technique mirrors every other flycatcher in the family, but the scissor-tailed version involves a nine-inch tail trailing behind during every flight, which adds aerodynamic flair to an otherwise standard bug-catching operation.

Ground insects get taken too. The bird drops from a perch to the ground to grab a grasshopper and returns to the wire to eat it, which gives rural roadside observers a regular show during summer months. A scissor-tailed flycatcher working a fence line through a cattle pasture will launch, catch, return, launch, catch, return, and repeat the cycle for hours with the methodical rhythm of someone being paid per grasshopper.

The insect size range skews larger than most flycatchers. The scissor-tailed flycatcher's bill handles grasshoppers, dragonflies, cicadas, and large beetles that smaller flycatchers avoid. A grasshopper that measured half the bird's bill length was observed getting caught, beaten against the perch until it stopped kicking, and swallowed in one motion. The bill-beating technique serves to immobilize the prey and break off legs and wings that would complicate swallowing.

The technique carries the efficiency of a process that was optimized over millions of years and the visual appeal of someone smacking a wrapped package against a countertop.

Feeding peaks in the early morning and late afternoon when insect flight activity hits its highest. Midday heat in a North Louisiana summer pasture reduces insect flight activity and correspondingly reduces the scissor-tail's aerial hunting success, pushing the bird toward ground strikes and perch-waiting during the hottest hours. A scissor-tailed flycatcher sitting motionless on a fence post at 2 PM in July did not retired.

The bird waits for the heat to break and the grasshoppers to resume flying, at which point the hunting pace returns to the one-catch-per-minute rate that characterizes productive feeding periods.

Direct danger is low, but flies associated with waste or carrion can carry microbes. Avoid handling them and keep food, wounds, and living spaces sanitary