From Opus

Male
Photo by mehdhalaouate
Port Douglas, Queensland, May 2005

Myiagra rubecula

[edit] Identification

Male: Dark blue grey above and white below, black-tipped blue bill surrounded by small bristles.
Females: blue-grey head and back with a distinctive reddish orange chin, throat and breast, white lower parts, pale eye-ring.
Young birds: are brown-grey above with streaked wings and mottled brown chests with a reddish wash.

[edit] Similar Species

The female which is similar to the Broad-billed Flycatcher male and female.

Female
Photo by AllanP
Brisbane, April 2009

[edit] Distribution

Northern Australia

[edit] Taxonomy

[edit] Subspecies^[1]

• M. r. papuana:

• Savanna of southern New Guinea and Boigu Island (northern Torres Strait)

• M. r. concinna:

• Northern Australia (King Sound, Western Australia to north-western Queensland)

• M. r. okyri:

• Northern Queensland (Cape York Peninsula)

• M. r. yorki:

• Eastern Australia (Burdekin River, Queensland to far north-eastern New South Wales)

• M. r. rubecula:

• South-eastern Australia (north-eastern New South Wales to central and southern Victoria); > to north

• M. r. sciurorum:

• Louisiade and D'Entrecasteaux archipelagos

[edit] Habitat

Dry sclerophyll and mangrove forests, bush and coastal areas.

[edit] Behaviour

They wag their tails.

[edit] Diet

Diet includes insects.

[edit] Breeding

Both sexes build the shallow, cup-shaped nest of torn bits of paperbark (Malleleuca) and grass held together by spiders web and decorated with pieces of bark and lichen; both parents incubate the eggs and feed the young.

[edit] Vocalisation

A most amazing song interspersed with a loud metallic click that carries throughout the bush.

[edit] References

1. Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist.

• List of references

[edit] External Links