Photo by Lowell Christian • The female scissor-tailed flycatcher in Jonesbrough perches attentively next to a nest containing young Eastern kingbirds. The bird’s maternal behaviour with the young kingbirds has attracted a lot of speculation from local birders.

Last week, I wrote about Jonesborough’s scissor-tailed flycatchers. This week, I am writing about the lone scissor-tailed flycatcher visiting Tennessee’s oldest town for the summer. Yes, there’s been a definite twist in this tale.

I attended the Elizabethton Bird Club’s annual summer picnic on July 12 at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park in Elizabethton. The amazing nesting efforts of the scissor-tailed flycatcher was a major topic of conversation.

There is apparently only a single scissor-tailed flycatcher, a solitary female with strong maternal instincts. She has taken a strong interest in a nest built and tended by a pair of Eastern kingbirds.

So, why did I feel certain I had seen two scissor-tailed flycatchers? First, as I’ve lamented in previous columns, my eyesight is a bit hazy these days. Second, I spent most of my time monitoring my camera’s view screen as I attempted to get photos of the flycatchers. I did see two birds, but I must have been detecting one of the Eastern kingbirds.

About the time I visited the nesting site on July 5, other birders in the area began to suspect something a bit strange. Some background might be in order.

The scissor-tailed flycatcher is a species belonging to the flycatcher genus Tyrannus, which includes the kingbirds. Other relatives in North America include Eastern kingbird, Western kingbird, tropical kingbird, Couch’s kingbird and Cassin’s kingbird. There’s also a giant kingbird native to Cuba and a loggerhead kingbird that is found throughout the Caribbean and on rare occasions in Florida.

Kingbirds are famous for their pugnacious behavior, not hesitating to attack larger birds such as hawks, vultures and crows in defense of their territory. Scissor-tailed flycatchers are also considered aggressive toward a variety of other birds.

A profile of the scissor-tailed flycatcher on the wildlife section of the website for Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency offers some tantalising tidbits about the relationships that can develop among species in the Tyrannus genus.

“While scissor-tailed flycatchers and Western kingbirds look quite different, they are known to hybridize and produce fertile offspring,” according to information from the TWRA website.

Scissor-tailed/Western kingbird hybrids have been recorded in Shelby County, Tennessee, successfully nesting with both scissor-tailed flycatcher and Western kingbird mates, according to the website.

In the Western United States, there are several species of Tyrannus flycatchers, and scissor-tailed flycatchers are known to have hybridized with several of them, including Western kingbird, Couch’s kingbird and tropical kingbird.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • An Eastern kingbird perches on a fence on the campus of East Tennessee State University.

Hybridization with Eastern kingbirds is a hazy area. Perhaps now that their ranges are beginning to overlap more, especially in Tennessee, it bears more study.

So far, it is not confirmed that the female scissor-tailed flycatcher in Jonesborough is part of a hybridized nesting attempt. She could just be a female scissor-tailed flycatcher, thwarted from finding a mate of her own species and driven by her maternal instinct to “adopt and help” tend the nestlings of a pair of Eastern kingbirds.

I’ve used quotes around the words adopt and help because, based on the observations of some birders, the Eastern kingbird do not exactly seem to welcome the presence of the female scissor-tailed flycatcher. Some people have described seeing evidence of bickering between the female scissor-tailed flycatcher and the kingbirds.

The female scissor-tailed flycatcher is far from her usual range in states like Texas and Oklahoma. She is making the best of her situation. The hungry Eastern kingbirds are not likely to reject a few extra morsels smuggled in by their unsolicited foster mother.

It’s an interesting wrinkle to the story. I am hopeful that this female flycatcher may visit next year and, perhaps, succeed in attracting a mate of her own kind.

I’m still thrilled to have finally added the species to my life list. I’d like to see this species in their native range, so I suppose a visit to Texas or Oklahoma will eventually be in order. Here’s an interesting tidbit to close things out. A now obsolete name for the scissor-tailed flycatcher was swallow-tailed flycatcher. Both name are fairly descriptive, but I think the best name won out.

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Bryan Stevens has written about birds and birding since 1995. To share a sighting, make a comment or ask a question, email him at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • Jonesborough’s visiting female scissor-tailed flycatcher has led some to speculate she may have attempted a mating with an Eastern kingbird.