This morning, while birding east of Columbia, Missouri, I was fortunate to come across a family of scissor-tailed flycatchers. The adults and their four young were lounging on a power line; as I watched from my Beetle, one of the adults flew off and soon returned with breakfast for the youngsters.
Most abundant across the Southern Plains, from Kansas to northern Mexico, these tropical-looking birds nest in groves of trees that border open country; occasionally, they nest on man-made structures such as barns, bridges or power poles. They feed almost exclusively on insects, most of which they snare in flight. Come fall, these flycatchers head for the Tropics though some winter in southernmost Florida.
Scissor-tails seem to be increasingly common in central Missouri and, in almost 50 years of birding, this was my first opportunity to observe a family. Just when we think we have seen it all, nature reminds us how provincial we humans truly are.
