Gray Kingbird
Description
The gray kingbird or grey kingbird, also known as pitirre, petchary, or white-breasted kingbird (Tyrannus dominicensis) is a passerine bird.
The adult gray kingbird is an average-sized kingbird. It measures 23 cm (9.1 in) in length and weighs from 37 to 52 g (1.3 to 1.8 oz). The upperparts are gray, with brownish wings and tail, and the underparts are white with a gray tinge to the chest. The head has a concealed yellow crown stripe, and a dusky mask through the eyes. The dark bill is heavier than that of the related, slightly smaller, tropical kingbird. The sexes are similar, but young birds have rufous edges on the wing coverts, rump and tail.
Diet
Gray kingbirds wait on an exposed perch high in a tree, occasionally sallying out to feed on insects, their staple diet.
Call
The call is a loud rolling trill, pipiri pipiri, which is the reason behind many of its local names, like pestigre or pitirre, in the Spanish-speaking Greater Antilles, or petchary in some of the English-speaking zones.
Distribution & Habitat
The Gray Kingbird is one of the most conspicuous and common
resident bird species throughout
the West Indies (Raffaele and
others 1998), including Puerto
Rico (Oberle 2018), Culebra,
and Vieques (Gemmill 2015).
It occurs on all the islands of
the Puerto Rican archipelago
(Ventosa-Febles and others 2005)
in open country, parks, forest
edges, and urban areas (Oberle
2018). The atlas fieldwork
yielded a total of 1,304 records
within 436 hexagons or 91
percent of the 479 total hexagons
(see map). Of the 436 hexagons where this species was found,
breeding met the atlas definition
of confirmed in 73 percent (320)
of the hexagons, probable in 18
percent (80), and possible in 8
percent (36) (see map). Gray Kingbird distribution. The map shows the highest breeding code by hexagon and overlaying the ecological life zones in
Puerto Rico. Note: percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
Breeding Habits
The Gray Kingbird builds an open nest made of twigs
in trees, shrubs, or human-
made structures from April to
June, according to previously
published reports (Raffaele
and others 1998). Atlas results
indicate that the Gray Kingbirds
breeding occurs throughout the
year, but the most activity takes 209Gray Kingbird/Pitirreplace during May and June (see chart). Atlas findings show that
the Gray Kingbird mostly breeds
within the subtropical moist
forest life zone (59 percent of the
hexagons) but also within the
subtropical dry and subtropical
wet forest life zones (22 and
19 percent of the hexagons,
respectively), while breeding
activity has also been reported
for one hexagon within the
subtropical rain forest life zone
(see table and map).
Conservation
The Gray Kingbird population is stable across its distribution
range, and it is listed as a
species of least concern by the
IUCN (BirdLife International
2016). Locally, this species is not
listed in any of the threatened
categories of PRDNER and
USFWS. In Puerto Rico, the
Gray Kingbird has a protected
habitat in land of 12 percent
or 1253 km2 of the total area covered by the hexagons where
evidence of breeding was found for this species (10 403 km2). (Note: the total area is larger than
the islands area as hexagons in
the coastline and cays are not
cropped for this analysis).
Related Species
Family:
flycatcher