• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Indian Paradise-Flycatcher - BirdForum Opus

(Redirected from Asian Paradise Flycatcher)
Page Discussion
View source History
Subspecies T. p. ceylonensis
Photo © by Steve G
Amaya Lake Hotel, nr Dambulla, Sri Lanka, July 2009
Terpsiphone paradisi

Identification

20-22 cm (7¾-8¾ in), with 20cm long tail streamers
Two very distinct colour phases.
Male

  • Black head with a shaggy peaked crest
  • Bright blue skin round eye
  • Blue bill
  • Bright chestnut-brown upperparts and tail
  • Greyish breast
  • White underparts

Female: duller, greyish throat, shorter tail, shorter crest.

Variations

Subspecies T. p. leucogaster, male
Photo © by Alok Tewari
Sattal Forest-edge, Altitude 5500 feet, Nainital, Uttarakhand Himalayas, India, 7 April 2023

White morph: black head and neck, rest of body white, apart from black primaries

Distribution

Asia: found in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China, Nepal
South Asia: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan
Southeast Asia: Indochina, Myanmar, Thailand, Island of Borneo

Taxonomy

Subspecies

Subspecies T. p. leucogaster, female
Photo © by Kaydeegee2010
Dharamshala,Himachal Pradesh India, June 2011

There are 3 subspecies[1]:

  • T. p. leucogaster:
  • T. p. paradisi:
  • T. p. ceylonensis:

Habitat

Thick forests and other well-wooded habitats.

Behaviour

Breeding

Both adults construct the cup nest in a tree. The clutch contains 2-5 pinkish-white eggs, with reddish-brown spots. Incubation takes 13-16 days. The young fledge after approximately 11-14 days.

Diet

Their main diet consists of small winged insects, with the occasional addition of praying mantis, grasshopper, moths and butterflies. Has also been observed taking small fish from a garden pond see Gallery image.

They generally forage alone or in pairs, though will occasionally join mixed species flocks.

Vocalisation

It has a sharp zweet call.

Gallery

Click on photo for larger image

References

  1. 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/
  2. Avibase
  3. BirdForum Member observations
  4. Moeliker, K., D. A. Christie, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Indian Paradise-Flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi), 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.aspfly1.01

Recommended Citation

External Links



GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1

Retrieved from ‘https://www.birdforum.net/wiki/index.php?title=Indian_Paradise-Flycatcher&oldid=263898’
Back
Top