Red-breasted Flycatcher

About the Red-breasted Flycatcher

The red-breasted flycatcher (Ficedula parva) is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. It breeds in eastern Europe and across Central Asia and is migratory, wintering in south Asia. The breeding male is mainly muted brown above and white below, with a grey head and an orange throat. Females and immatures are similarly colored but lack the orange throat patch. The red-breasted flycatcher is a regular passage migrant in western Europe, whereas the collared flycatcher, which has a different migration route (wintering in Sub-Saharan Africa), is scarce. It forms a superspecies with the closely related taiga flycatcher and Kashmir flycatcher and can be distinguished from the former by its different song, warmer-toned plumage and the more extensive orange throat patch.

The red-breasted flycatcher is one of about 30 species placed in the flycatcher genus Ficedula, along with other European species such as the collared flycatcher and the more widely distributed European pied flycatcher. The genus was introduced by the French naturalist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760, with Ficedula being the Latin name for a small fig-eating bird (ficus, "fig") supposed to... Wikipedia →