Mugimaki Flycatcher

About the Mugimaki Flycatcher

The mugimaki flycatcher (Ficedula mugimaki) is a small passerine bird of eastern Asia belonging to the genus Ficedula in the Old World flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. The name "mugimaki" comes from Japanese and means "wheat-sower". The bird is also known as the robin flycatcher.

The mugimaki flycatcher is 13 to 13.5 centimetres long. It has a rattling call and often flicks its wings and tail. The adult male has blackish upperparts with a short white supercilium behind the eye, a white wing-patch, white edges to the tertials and white at the base of the outer tail-feathers. The breast and throat are orange-red while the belly and undertail-coverts are white. The female is grey-brown above with a pale orange-brown breast and throat. She lacks white in the tail, has one or two pale wingbars rather than a white wing-patch and has a supercilium that is either faint or absent entirely. Young males are similar to the female but have a brighter orange breast, white in the tail and a more obvious supercilium.

It breeds in eastern Siberia and north-east China. Migrating birds pass through eastern China, Korea and Japan in spring and autumn. The... Wikipedia →