Western Wood-Pewee

How to find it

Start at higher sites, since more pewees seem to pass through highland habitats. Listen first, because these birds call often and can be identified by sound. Look for it sallying out from exposed perches, in open areas and in forested areas. Pewees tend to return to the same snag after each sally, so once you find one you can study it at length with a scope. Look for the small, upright gray flycatcher on bare branches in the canopy, since its gray body blends into the branches unless it is against the sky. A pewee seen inside forest is more likely a migrant wood-pewee than a Tropical Pewee.

How to recognise it

This is a small gray-olive flycatcher, about 14 cm long. Look for these marks:

A darker crown.

Two faint wing bars, the upper one dull and the lower one brighter.

A dark bill, with a yellow-orange base on the lower part. Only a small part of the lower bill is yellow, and it has a dark tip, so the bill looks mostly dark.

Grayish sides to the breast and belly, with a paler center. The belly reads gray to white.

A slightly notched tail.

Compared with the Eastern Wood-Pewee, the Western has a straighter back and darker color overall, with a fuller dusky vest. The Eastern often looks hunchbacked. One silent pewee in Costa Rica was called Western because it looked very gray, had a mostly dark bill and showed a stronger lower wing bar, though the observer still said it is best to hear a pewee before naming it.

What it sounds like

Recording: Sean Frey, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The Western Wood-Pewee sits on an open perch and flies out to catch insects in the air, a habit birders call sallying. Bees, wasps, ants and flies are all on the menu. During migration many individuals can be seen together, and in Costa Rica the passage involves very large numbers of pewees.

Pewees here may fall silent on migration and hunt without singing. One that was not vocalizing still sallied constantly from a snag to catch airborne insects.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it can turn up almost anywhere, on both slopes, in open areas and in forested areas alike. During migration it tends to be more numerous at higher sites, and more seem to pass through highland habitats. The Eastern Wood-Pewee is more numerous in the lowlands.

Farther south, on its wintering grounds, it prefers mature humid forest and the edges of secondary growth, mainly between about 400 and 1200 m elevation. Costa Rica is the northern edge of that wintering range.

When to see it

In spring it passes from late March to late May, perhaps early June. In fall it passes from late July or early August to mid-November. In early September 2021 both wood-pewee species had begun moving through, along with Willow/Alder Flycatchers, Red-eyed Vireos and the first wood-warblers.

Similar birds

The Eastern Wood-Pewee is the harder one, and where they overlap voice is the most reliable way to tell them apart. Eastern gives a clear three-part song, against Western's harsh, buzzy, downslurred song. In the Caribbean lowlands in fall, Eastern is by far the most common pewee, perched on nearly every post and branch, so Western is the less numerous one there. The Tropical Pewee is slightly smaller with a yellowish belly. It is a resident of hot, tropical habitats and mostly stays at forest edges.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican sources use Pibí occidental, and the AOCR list adds the local names Tontillo and Piguí.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a migrant with possible residency (M,R?), and it is a common to abundant passage migrant on both slopes but only a casual winterer in Costa Rica.

Photography tips

Pewees return to the same snag after each sally, so settle in and wait. A migrant in the Central Valley kept to the same perch through a late afternoon. Its gray body blends into branches unless it is against the sky, so look for it in open light. Pewees do not usually come to feeders.