Hill Blue Flycatcher     Cyornis banyumas whitei

Etymology:

• Cyornis : Greek Word kuanos dark-blue; ornis- bird

• Banyumas : From Banyumas Province in Java, Indonesia

• Whitei : Capt. Samuel Albert White (1870-1954) Australian Army, explore 

Distribution in India: winter visitor in North East India.

Description: Size of 14–15·5 cm; weight of 14–17 g. It is a medium-sized flycatcher, male is blue, orange and white, and female is brownish with rufous rump. The male of nominate race has forehead to over eye as bright pale blue, crown and upperparts, including edges of flight-feathers and tail feathers are dark blue, inner flight-feathers are blackish. The lesser upperwing-coverts are bright blue (sometimes indistinct or partially concealed); lores to eye, cheeks, lower ear-coverts and chin are black. The throat, breast and flanks are orange, grading into white on rest of underparts (extent of orange variable, can be restricted to throat and upper breast). The underwing-coverts are pale buffish rufous; iris is dark brown; bill is black, dull purplish base of mandible; legs are brownish grey to greyish pink or pale flesh-coloured.

Female has blue areas of male replaced by plain brown or greyish brown, except for rufous on rump and tail and edges of tertials and secondaries (some females may have greyish-blue upperparts or bluer uppertail-coverts), pale buff eyering and orange-buff upper lores. The underparts as male, but chin and throat paler than breast.

The juvenile is similar to female but has buffish spots on darker brown upperparts and tips of wing-coverts, deep buff throat and breast with dark bars and scaling, whitish belly and vent with faint dusky mottling. The juvenile male separable at early age by blue rump and tail.

Races differ mainly in intensity of plumage colour: Race whitei is found in India. It is slightly longer-winged than last, legs are violet-grey.

Habitat: It is found in dense and moist primary and secondary broadleaf forests, often in ravines and bamboo thickets, in areas of more open forest and in parks and gardens on migration. It si found between 400 m and 2500 m.

Food habits: It eats small invertebrates, flies, small beetles and cockroaches. It is found usually in pairs, but generally solitary in non-breeding season. It forages in undergrowth and shaded lower levels of forest, by darting from perch to take passing insects. It also sits unobtrusively on perch for long periods.

Breeding habits: They breed in Mar–Jul. The nest is an untidy cup of moss and fine plant fibres, placed low down in epiphyte, hollow tree stump, against trunk, occasionally on ground on bank or among tree roots. They lay a clutch of 2–3 eggs.