Adults have olive-grey upperparts, darker on the wings and tail, with whitish underparts; they have a noticeable medium-width white eye ring, white wing bars and a medium length tail. The breast is washed with olive-grey.The bill is mainly dark.

Habitat and Distribution

These birds migrate to southern Arizona and Mexico. They are passage migrants over the deserts of the southwest US, the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts, where they make their stops along the flyway.


They wait on an open perch and catch insects in flight, (hawking), also sometimes picking insects from foliage (gleaning).


Their breeding habitat is mountain slopes and foothills with brush and scattered trees across western North America. They make a cup nest low in a vertical fork in a shrub.

Calls and Songs

A common call is a dry whit, and a less common one that is possibly only given by males is a sad dew-hic