Bar-winged flycatcher-shrike
| Bar-winged flycatcher-shrike | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Hemipus picatus capitalis from Uttarakhand, India | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Tephrodornithidae |
| Genus: | Hemipus |
| Species: | H. picatus |
| Binomial name | |
|
Hemipus picatus (Sykes, 1832) |
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| Subspecies | |
| Synonyms | |
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Muscicapa picata |
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Muscicapa picata
Hemipus picaecolor
The bar-winged flycatcher-shrike (Hemipus picatus) is a small passerine bird formerly placed in the cuckooshrike family but probably closer to the woodshrikes. It is found in the forests of tropical southern Asia from the Himalayas and hills of the Indian subcontinent east to Indonesia. Mainly insectivorous it is found hunting in the mid-canopy of forests, often joining mixed-species foraging flocks. They perch upright and have a distinctive pattern of black and white, males being more shiny black than the females. In some populations the colour of the back is brownish while others have a dark wash on the underside.
The bar-winged flycatcher-shrike is black capped with black wings that contrast with the white of the body. A white slash across the wing and a white rump stand out in contrast. They sit upright on branches, flying around to glean insects. The nostril is hidden by hairs and the upper mandible of the beak has a curved tip. Males are velvety black while females tend to be greyish brown but the pattern varies across the geographic populations. Both males and females of the Himalayan H. p. capitalis have a brown back but the males have a black head. The Sri Lankan population leggei lacks sexual dimorphism in plumage. H. p. intermedius has only the females with a brownish back. The tail is black but the outer tail feathers are white while the non-central tail feathers are tipped with white.
The call is a rapid and high tsit-it-it-it or a whriri-whirriri-whirriri and sometimes a sharp chip. Male-female pairs of the subspecies leggei of Sri Lanka have been reported to duet with precision.
Young birds are said to have a broken pattern of white and grey giving the appearance of lichens.
The exact systematic family position is unclear but the genus Hemipus has been found to be closely related to the genus Tephrodornis and show affinities to the Malaconotidae of Africa.
The nominate race is found mainly in the Western Ghats of India but becoming very rare towards the Surat Dangs. They are also found in some parts of central and eastern India, extending into Bangladesh. The subspecies capitalis is found along the Himalayas from Simla, east to Manipur and Chittagong in India and extending into northern Thailand, Myanmar and Laos.
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Wikipedia