White-browed Fantail
Rhipidura aureola
Fantail with a broad white eyebrow, dark upperparts, and white underparts. Crown and ear-coverts black, contrasting with white eyebrows. Throat mottled black-and-white. Pair of wingbars formed by well-separated white teardrop-shaped spots. Female slightly paler with a browner head. Immature like adult, but has rufous tips to dark feathers of upperparts. Frequent song is a 4- to 7-note melodious whistling phrase that ascends and then sometimes descends or is left incomplete. Contact call is a harsh “switch-wich.” Inhabits dry, open wooded habitats, ranging from dry deciduous forest to scrubby agricultural edges.
Identification
The adult white-browed fantail is about 18 cm long. It has dark brown upperparts, with white spots on the wings, and whitish underparts. The fan-shaped tail is edged in white, and the long white supercilia meet on the forehead. The throat and eyemask are blackish and border whitish moustachial stripes.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Rhipidura aureola
- Authority
- Lesson, RP, 1831
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Rhipiduridae
- Genus
- Rhipidura
Range and habitat
The white-browed fantail breeds across tropical regions of the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The species ranges from eastern Pakistan to southern Indochina. It is found in forest and other woodland.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Three eggs are laid in a small cup nest in a tree. The white-browed fantail is insectivorous, and often fans its tail as it moves through the undergrowth.
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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