Alternative name: White-breasted Thicket Fantail
- Rhipidura leucothorax
Identification
18 cm.
- Sooty brown crown
- Black side of head
- White supercilium
- Dark brown mantle and back
- Sooty black rump and uppertail-coverts
- Blackish wing, white tips on wing-coverts
- Black tail, broad white tips on rectrices
- Black chin to upper breast, large white patch on throat side
- Mottled black and white lower breast
- White abdomen, grey-brown flanks and thighs
- Black undertail-coverts
- clamosa is darker than nominate, episcopalis has a browner back
Sexes similar, immatures are browner and have a white spotted breast.
Distribution
Endemic to New Guinea.
Common to very common in parts of its range.
Taxonomy
This is a polytypic species[1] consisting of 2 subspecies:
Subspecies
- R. l. leucothorax New Guinea, east in the north to Astrolabe Bay, and east in the south to the western portion of the Southeastern Peninsula
- R. l. episcopalis in southeast New Guinea (Kapa Kapa to Astrolabe Bay)
Habitat
Moist lowland forests and mangrove forests. Also in scrub, secondary growth near waterways, gardens and semi-cleared areas. Usually in dense low vegetation.
Occurs from lowlands up to hills, locally up to 1350 m.
Behaviour
An inconspicuous species, often first heard before seen.
Diet
Feeds on insects.
Forages close to the ground, sometimes also higher up and even up to the canopy.
Breeding
Nestlings seen in October, eggs in late August, fledglings in mid-August and early October. Breeding season latter half of wet season and late dry season. The nest is a small cup made of dried rushes and other fine vegetation. It's placed c. 0.5 m above the water level in the fork of a small tree or shrub in or near water or in swampy areas. Lays 2 eggs.
Movements
This is probably a sedentary species.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Boles, W. (2020). White-bellied Thicket-Fantail (Rhipidura leucothorax), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.wbtfan1.01
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) White-bellied Thicket Fantail. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/White-bellied_Thicket_Fantail
