On 15 April Steve Walter found and photographed an ABA Code-3 Fork-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus savanna) near Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The tropical species, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, is known for far-ranging migrations. Some Fork-tailed subspecies are sedentary but the nominate, T. s. savanna, is an austral migrant in northern South America, wintering north to Central America and the West Indies, while T. s. monachus from southern Mexico and Central America is mostly resident. As far as is currently known, all ABA records are representatives of the nominate race, usually immature birds with shorter tails.
Fork-tailed and Scissor-tailed flycatchers have long thought to be each other’s closest relative based on both possessing long tail streamers, but this affinity is not supported by molecular-sequencing data. Fork-tailed Flycatcher is now thought to be most closely related to Couch’s and White-throated kingbirds. During winter and in migration, Fork-tailed Flycatchers occur in large harmonious flocks but they become very aggressive on their breeding grounds where males use their oversized outer tail feathers in spectacular spiral displays (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Vol. 9).
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