All flycatchers are agile fliers who catch their three squares a day while flying. They subsist extensively on true flies and other winged insects. These birds are premiere pest insect controllers in suburban and farm areas and one you want in your yard if you can attract them.
Eastern phoebe eats 95 percent of their diet in insects in nearby open areas including gardens. They love beetles of all sorts during spring and summer. In addition to all those flies they catch on the wing, they devour wasps, ants, leafhoppers, grasshoppers, crickets, sawfly larvae, click beetles, May beetles, corn-leaf beetles, 12 spotted cucumber beetles, striped cucumber beetle, locust leaf miner weevils such as the cotton-boll weevil and the strawberry weevil. moths and tent caterpillars. Unfortunately they also like to eat our friends the bees and spiders, but will not hurt that population in a healthy home yard ecosystem.
