The striking scissor-tailed flycatcher is an icon of Oklahoma and beyond. Learn about their nests, diet and more.
How to Identify a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Published on Jun. 26, 2025
For fans of the board game Wingspan, and residents of Oklahoma, the scissor-tailed flycatcher is unmistakable, but for everyone else, here is a primer on this iconic bird.
On This Page
What Does a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher Look Like?
According to Neil Garrison, retired naturalist at Martin Park Nature Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, “the scissor-tailed flycatcher is a spectacular species,” and one that is “quite special for aesthetics.” It is so distinctive that it’s landed on the cover of the Wingspan box and on the Oklahoma quarter.
Having bodies similar in size to gray catbirds, scissor-tailed flycatchers appear substantially larger with their oversized and deeply forked tails. Males and females are similar in appearance with females slightly duller in coloration and having slightly shorter tails, although Neil notes, this is hard to detect unless the birds are side-by-side.
The birds are strikingly black and white with a warm gray ombre transition along the back. Especially striking in flight, shoulder patches, side flanks, and underwing pits are bright salmon.
“You don’t see it as much when they are perched,” Neil says, “but that rose patch is really noticeable in flight.”
Young birds still show a distinct long bifurcated split tail, although it’s not as dramatic as in adults. They lack the pink-orange wash of adults as well.
Learn more about flycatcher birds.
Similar Species
The scissor-tailed flycatcher could easily be named the scissor-tailed kingbird. It is in the same Tyrannus genus as the eastern, western, and Cassin’s kingbirds. These species are relatively large and noted for their assertive bold behaviors, especially around nest sites.
Range and Habitat
The core breeding range for scissor-tailed flycatchers is in Oklahoma. “We share it with the adjacent states,” says Neil. These flycatchers nest north to southern Nebraska, south to northern Mexico, east to western Louisiana, and west to eastern New Mexico.
The species prefers open habitats with a few perching spots. Garrison also appreciates how visible the flycatchers are. “It’s not that unusual for it to be sitting on a fence post or a power line, so it’s familiar to a lot of the people of Oklahoma.”
Some scissor-tailed flycatchers are adaptable to human landscapes. Neil describes how in addition to being seen in rural areas, it’s increasingly common to find these birds making use of small patches with habitat. “I find a number of nests in the isolated trees of the landscaping in parking lots,” Neil says.
Noted wanderers, it is always possible to spot a scissor-tailed flycatcher beyond their typical range during migration. Be aware that long tailed birds in the fall, especially in the east, could be the closely related fork-tailed flycatcher, a species that is typically found from southern Mexico to Argentina, yet individuals do show up in the U.S. nearly every year.
Scissor-tailed flycatchers gather in large flocks in winter, spending this season predominately along the Pacific Coast of southern Mexico down to Central America. A few scissor-tailed flycatchers winter in southern Florida.
Learn how to identify and attract a great crested flycatcher.
Nests and Eggs
Similar to the acrobatics of flycatcher feeding, scissor-tailed males perform an elaborate sky display in an effort to attract a mate. Males will fly sky high, up to 100 feet in the air, before plummeting back down in graceful zigzagging swoops. Neil is always impressed at the way males “use their tails to really display to impress the females.”
Nests are simple cups usually placed in the forks of tree branches.
“The scissor-tailed flycatcher nests are lined with a lot of fuzzy materials in the cup, making them distinctive to me,” says Garrison.
Male scissor-tailed flycatchers will help feed young birds after they fledge, while the females lay a second brood of eggs.
Diet: What Do Scissor-Tailed Flycatchers Eat?
It is no surprise that insects are a main food for flycatchers. Scissor-tailed flycatchers are classic sallying birds, meaning they fly out and snatch bugs from the air, before returning to a perch to consume it.
Preferred bites included bees, wasps, grasshoppers, beetles, and crickets. At times, scissor-tailed flycatchers will forage on the ground. Flycatchers don’t digest the legs and wings of their prey and will spit up regurgitated pellets of this indigestible material.
Occasionally, especially during the winter, flycatchers supplement their insect diets with fruits and berries.
“Scissor-tailed flycatchers are a poster child for world conservation,” says Garrison. “As insectivorous neotropical migrants, we need to do whatever we can in the United States to protect them, but they also need their wintering habitats protected. There is an international tinge to them.”
Song/Call
Bird sounds courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
During courtship flights, Neil notes that male scissor-tailed flycatchers enthusiastically call. Beyond that, they are one of the less vocal species in his experience.
Like many of the other kingbird type flycatchers, scissor-tailed flycatchers have a number of sharp high-pitched calls and chattering squeaks for vocalizations, often rising in pitch and speed as it goes.
The scissor-tailed flycatcher’s voice is surprisingly similar to that of the western kingbird. These two species are often found in the same habitats, and they sometimes interbreed, producing hybrids.
About the Expert
Neil Garrison spent a 30-year career as a naturalist for Martin Park Nature Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He remains an active bird watcher, nature educator, and volunteer in retirement, continuing to lead nature walks for the community. Additionally, he writes a weekly outdoors column for the Oklahoman newspaper.
