What bird says quick, three beers?

The bird calling quick, three beers! is an Olive-sided Flycatcher, a compact, big-headed flycatcher that sits bolt upright on the highest dead branch of a tree. You hear it in summer in northern conifer forests and higher mountains, usually at the edge of a bog, pond or clearing, and for a few weeks on migration elsewhere. Some birders hear the same song as quick, free beer! If what you heard was a harsh, burry, two-part free-beer from a low, wet thicket instead, consider the Alder Flycatcher.

Listen: the Olive-sided Flycatcher

Both versions of the phrase have good paper trails. Audubon's field guide writes the song as a distinctive and emphatic quick-three-beers. Audubon's own mnemonic quiz uses Quick, free beer! for the same bird. It is one rhythm with a different second word: a quick opening note, then two more. Do not expect it to sound like a person. Treat it as a beat you can tap on a table, and the phrase will find you.

Look up, then look for the tallest dead tree. This flycatcher watches from a high, exposed perch, usually the top dead branch, flies out after a passing insect and comes back to the perch to eat it. Audubon notes that it almost always takes its prey in midair, not from leaves or the ground, and that in summer much of that prey is wasps, winged ants and bees, honeybees included. It breeds mainly in northern conifer forest and in higher mountains, especially along the edges of bogs, ponds and clearings. In California it also nests near the coast in tall trees, eucalyptus among them, in foothill canyons. In spring the males sing heavily to defend their territories.

Away from the breeding grounds you get only a short window. Olive-sided Flycatchers winter mostly in South America, with fewer in Central America, and they migrate late in spring and early in fall, so a bird calling from a snag in a city park in late spring is probably on its way north. Audubon adds that the species has evidently been declining in some regions for many years, possibly because of habitat loss on its wintering grounds, which makes every round of three beers worth stopping for.

Or was it free beer? The Alder Flycatcher

If your phrase was just two words, free beer, and it came from a thicket rather than a treetop, the singer may be an Alder Flycatcher. Audubon writes its song as a burry fee-bee-o. Fontenelle Forest's naturalists describe the same harsh, burry song as traditionally three syllables, but note that it can come across as a two-syllable free-beer, with the third syllable faint and indistinct. So the two drinking songs belong to two different birds, one loud and emphatic from a high snag, the other harsh and burry from the shrubs.

Alder Flycatchers live in willows, alders, brushy swamps and swales, and breed in thickets of deciduous trees and shrubs, usually near water such as streams, ponds or bogs. Like the Olive-sided, they are long-distance migrants that come north late in spring and leave early in fall. Fontenelle Forest lists the species as an uncommon migrant there, passing through from mid May to early June and again in September. Its look-alike, the Willow Flycatcher, sings a wheezy fitz-bew instead, and Audubon says voice is the only reliable way to tell the two apart in the field.

How to tell which one you heard

• Count the beats. Three, with a quick opener: Olive-sided, whether your ear says three beers or free beer. Two burry syllables, sometimes with a faint third: Alder.
• Look high or low. The Olive-sided calls from the very top of a tall dead tree. The Alder stays in willow and alder thickets and brushy swamps near water.
• Listen to the texture. The Olive-sided's song is loud and emphatic. The Alder's is harsh and burry.
• Do not lean on the call. The Olive-sided gives a loud pip-pip-pip and the Alder an emphatic pip or pit, so the song is the better clue.
• Check the calendar. Both arrive late in spring and leave early in fall. Away from their breeding grounds, either one is a migrant passing through for a few weeks.

If the singer is a speck on a far-off snag, Warble can listen to the song and name the bird for you.

Questions people ask

Warble is a game, not a field guide. Facts about birds on this page come from the sources above.