Eastern Wood-Pewee
Learn to identify the Eastern Wood-Pewee by ear. Master the "a plaintive, whistled pee-a-wee" phrase and tell it apart from similar species.
What the Eastern Wood-Pewee sounds like
Slow pee-a-wee whistles alternate with shorter notes that slide down into peeee-oh, with roomy pauses between phrases.
How to tell it apart
Lessons featuring the Eastern Wood-Pewee
Ready to test your ear? Practice identifying the Eastern Wood-Pewee's sounds in these interactive in-app lessons.
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Where you'll hear it
Breeds from southeastern Canada south through the eastern United States. Winters in northern South America, chiefly in the Andean foothills from Colombia to Bolivia.
Open understory and mid-canopy of mature deciduous, mixed, and pine forests; woodland edges, small clearings, and shaded rural groves.
Arrives on breeding grounds late April–May, sings and nests through August, then departs southward August–September. On wintering grounds October–March.
How to recognize it by sight
The Eastern Wood-Pewee is a slender, inconspicuous flycatcher of deciduous and mixed forests. Perched motionlessly on exposed mid-story branches, this bird sallies out to snatch insects on the wing before drifting back to the same or a nearby perch. Its mournful, whistled song is a quintessential sound of summer woodlands across eastern North America.