Nimba Flycatcher

A distinctive plain, all-blue flycatcher-like bird with a light blue bill. Male is handsome, azure blue, often showing a slim dark breast band. Female and juvenile are duller, gray-blue, and lack a breast band. Singles and pairs are active birds, often found in mixed-species flocks in forest and forest edge in the lowlands and into the lower foothills. Restricted to Sulawesi and the Banggai and Sula Islands. Varied calls include a ringing, “way-way-way-way…”, a rapid, agitated-sounding, stuttering “wi-wi-wi-wi-wi-wi…”, and rasping calls.

Common summer resident in the Andes of central Chile and adjacent Argentina; migrates north in winter. Found on rocky and stony slopes with scrubby bushes, gravel plains, bogs, and lakeshores; often the commonest ground-tyrant, associating readily with other species in migrant flocks. Best identified by brownish cast to back (not pure gray), diffuse rusty nape patch, and relatively distinct whitish eyebrow; sometimes very confiding.

A blackish, drongo-like cuckoo with a shallow forked tail and broad outer tail tips. Note the slim bill and the barring on the base of the undertail, and on the underwings in flight. Juvenile shows extensive white spotting. Singles and pairs inhabit forest and forest edge within lowlands and foothills. Smaller and slimmer-billed than drongos, with a shallower tail fork and barring in the plumage. Song is a distinctive series of 5-9 whistled notes, each rising up the scale: “ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki.”