Gray Tit-Flycatcher
Fraseria plumbea
A gray flycatcher that has a distinctive blackish tail with white outer tail feathers. It forages more like a warbler than a typical flycatcher, flitting through foliage searching carefully for insects; seldom sallies to catch flies. Often it leans forward with its tail slightly raised and spread, a behavior that may flush insects nearby. It forages unobtrusively in broadleaf woodland, thickets, and forest edge, where it is most often detected by its trembling, mournful “wheeely-wheerr” song. The similar Gray-throated Tit-Flycatcher prefers lowland rainforest and has an all-dark tail and a plain gray face, while Ashy Flycatcher has an all-dark tail and hunts by perching and sallying like a typical flycatcher.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Fraseria plumbea
- Authority
- (Hartlaub, 1858)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Muscicapidae
- Genus
- Fraseria
Range and habitat
It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast,Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.<p>Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest.
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Chestnut Seedeater
Sporophila cinnamomea
Handsome seedeater. Males are mostly chestnut with a gray cap, wings, and tail, while females are sandy-colored and difficult to separate from other female seedeaters. Rare; found in marshy areas with tall grass, migrating north in the austral winter.
Fiery-breasted Bushshrike
Malaconotus cruentus
A massive arboreal bushshrike of lowland forests. Shaped like a typical bushshrike but oversized, with a giant bill. Throat and breast are orange-red, fading to yellow under the tail. Head is gray with two giant white spectacles around the eyes. The back, wings, and tail are yellow-green with dark spots at the tips of the secondary flight feathers and tail. Locally overlaps with Lagden’s Bushshrike and possibly with Green-breasted Bushshrike and Monteiro’s Bushshrike, but Fiery-breasted is unique in its combination of orange-red breast and bright white spectacles. Gives a series of short, ringing hoots, “kwhop, kwhop,” sometimes spaced out by several seconds.
Puna Pipit
Anthus brevirostris
Slender brown and buff bird found in dry grasslands in the high Andes. It has a streaked breast and white outer tail feathers that can be conspicuous in flight. Similar to several other pipits; some features that help to distinguish it include its pale overall appearance, lack of thick stripes on back, faint eyebrow, thin whisker mark, and whitish (not buffy) belly. Other pipits in range tend to favor more humid areas. Voice is the best way to verify ID. Song, often given in flight, starts with a few chip notes, then morphs into a descending buzz and is quickly followed by several sharp chirps. Feeds on the ground, and sometimes comes up to an elevated perch such as a rock or a wire. This species was split from Short-billed Pipit, which is found at lower elevations and does not overlap with Puna Pipit.
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