Black Phoebe

About the Black Phoebe

The Black Phoebe is a small flycatcher in formal dress: sooty black head, chest, and upperparts with a crisp white belly and undertail. It perches upright on low branches, rocks, and railings, pumping its tail steadily - a habit shared by all phoebes.

It hunts from those low perches, darting out in short flights to snap up flying insects, and it is never far from water: streams, ponds, canals, and stock tanks are the center of its world. The nest is an open cup of mud and grass plastered to a sheltered vertical surface - a cliff face, culvert, or bridge support - often directly over water.

In Texas the Black Phoebe is a year-round resident of the western and central parts of the state, most familiar along Hill Country rivers and Trans-Pecos watercourses, and its range has been edging slowly eastward.