Mugimaki Flycatcher
Ficedula mugimaki
Chunky, round-headed flycatcher with an orange front in all plumages. Adult male has vivid orange throat and breast contrasting with black upperparts and white belly, supercilium, and wing patches. Younger male and adult female grayish-brown above and white below, with pale yellow-orange throat, white eyering, and very narrow wingbars. Breeds in lowlands up into submontane areas, favoring broadleaf and mixed forests; in submontane evergreen forests on wintering grounds. Song begins with a few pure silvery whistles, followed by a jumble of warbling trills.
Identification
The mugimaki flycatcher is 13 to 13.5 centimetres long. It has a rattling call and often flicks its wings and tail. The adult male has blackish upperparts with a short white supercilium behind the eye, a white wing-patch, white edges to the tertials and white at the base of the outer tail-feathers. The breast and throat are orange-red while the belly and undertail-coverts are white. The female is grey-brown above with a pale orange-brown breast and throat. She lacks white in the tail, has one or two pale wingbars rather than a white wing-patch and has a supercilium that is either faint or absent entirely. Young males are similar to the female but have a brighter orange breast, white in the tail and a more obvious supercilium.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Ficedula mugimaki
- Authority
- (Temminck, 1836)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Muscicapidae
- Genus
- Ficedula
Range and habitat
It breeds in eastern Siberia and north-east China. Migrating birds pass through eastern China, Korea and Japan in spring and autumn. The species winters in Southeast Asia, reaching western Indonesia and the Philippines. There is a single record of a vagrant bird in Alaska; on Shemya Island in 1985. A bird in Humberside, England in 1991 was not accepted into Category A, a wild bird, but was put in a Category D, meaning likely to be of captive origin. It was retained in Category D following a review in 2009. After a third review in 2016 the bird was placed in category E.<p>The main habitats are forest and woodland, particularly at higher elevations. It is also found in parks and gardens during migration. It usually occurs alone or in small groups, feeding on flying insects in the tree canopy.
- Breeding range
- PAL : n Mongolia and se Russia through ne China to the Korean Pen.
- Non-breeding range
- se Asia through Java, Sulawesi and Philippines
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Satin Swiftlet
Collocalia uropygialis
A strikingly patterned swiftlet that is mostly a deep satin purple with a bright white rump and white spots at the base of the tail. Occurs over most habitat types, almost always in flight. Resembles White-rumped Swiftlet, but generally much darker, especially underneath, with much more contrasting coloration and no pale throat. Rarely vocal, but gives an electric “churr” at nesting colonies.
African Cuckoo-Hawk
Aviceda cuculoides
Slim, long-winged, mid-sized raptor with oddly cuckoo-like markings. Has fairly weak, floppy flight and rarely soars. Generally uncommon species of thick savannah, woodland, and forest edge. Call is a long, mournful whistle. Although its shape is distinctive with practice, cuckoo-hawks can be confused with many other raptor species. Note the widely spaced rufous barring on the belly, and the small crest. Cuckoo-hawks are much slower and weaker fliers than any of the goshawks or sparrowhawks.
Bangwa Warbler
Bradypterus bangwaensis
A bright rusty-cinnamon warbler with a long and graduated tail, a slightly darker face, and a pale throat and belly. Juvenile is duller than adult, with yellowish underparts. Resident, restricted to a few highland areas in southeast Nigeria and northwest Cameroon, where pairs creep around mouse-like in thick undergrowth and tangles in montane forest and scrub between 1600 and 3000 meters of elevation. Frequently detected and identified by its song, an insistent rollicking “chee-lip” delivered 3–4 times a second for 10 seconds at a time, getting progressively louder. It also has a strident alarm call “krrr.” The similar Evergreen Forest Warbler differs from Bangwa in its duller underparts and different song.
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