This is Brodie with Illinois Extension and I’m here with a new “voice of the wild”

A tyrant over the summer skies of field and farm, with no tolerance for hawks, eagles, jays, or crows. To most birds these predators might be intimidating, but to this fearless flycatcher, they’re nothing but interlopers and to be dealt with posthaste. This is the eastern kingbird.

The outrage at a predator’s trespass is almost palpable on the kingbird’s skittering call and shallow flickering wingbeats when they chase it away. When they return to their perch, often a powerline or hedgerow, you’ll see their overall simple black and white plumage and the prominent white band at the base of their tail. Their high-pitched metallic calls are sometimes described as sounding like electricity arcing between wires, but having grown up in rural Illinois, to me it just sounds like summer break. Here’s the eastern kingbird again.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for today’s sound. Learn more about voice of the wild at go.illinois.edu/VOW