The Mesmerizing Paradise-Flycatcher

About:

This bird is so beautiful that photos and words can’t do justice to it. You need to see it to understand what I mean to say.

The Adult Male…

The male has a glossy, silky royal blue head & a crest, a blue beak and matching eye-rings. His body is all white with a hint of black on his wing-tips. The tail is really long, upto three times his body length.

Glossy blue – black head of the male

The Female…

The female has a normal tail and she has rufous upperparts. Another point of distinction is that female’s front neck is grey whereas the male has all glossy blue – black head and neck.

The immature or eclipse male looks like his mother but has a long tail like his father.

In flight, the male looks like a dart with long trailing ribbons. They can fly really fast.

Behavior:

The Nest: hardly 2 – 3 inches in size. Note the dense jungle…

They feed on tiny flying insects.

I have seen a male take a perch on a tree next to a small Himalayan stream. He, then, flew low in a wavy manner over the stream, catching insects in flight and returned to its original perch. This continued for quite a while.

His dance:

The male fans out his tail while flapping his wings and moving his two tail streamers. He can move them up and down independently or together; or curl them or spread them apart. He also has control over his crest feathers and can split them into two, flatten them or raise them according to his will.

Threats:

These are migratory birds and they feed on insects. Excessive use of pesticides and insecticides has severely affected the population of insects. So whenever you reach for an insecticide / pesticide spray, do think of this beautiful bird.

This guy was trying to impress a female…