My Avian Diary - Indian Paradise Flycatcher

Life of Birds through my Lens - 1

For over a decade, I have been deeply passionate about birdwatching and bird photography. These excursions have provided me with fascinating insights into the world of birds; their behaviours, habits, nesting patterns, etc. My Avian Diary is a bi-monthly blog series; an initiative to pen down these observations and anecdotes along with selected bird photographs. Each of these blogs will have a dedicated section named From the Fieldbook, a space where I will be sharing some unique observations I have recorded in the field.

Ornithology (the study of birds) encompasses a wide range of avian aspects, including a bird's physical characteristics, behaviour, anatomy, physiology, evolution, habitats, and migration patterns. But when it comes to Ornithology, there is a variety of terms like passerine, nictitating membrane, moult, etc. It is essential to understand their terms, and I will be explaining them as and when they appear.

The first blog from the series is about the Indian paradise flycatcher, a species that has eluded me for several years, and yet gave me some of the beautiful pictures. So let's jump straight into the fascinating world of IPFC!

The Indian paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi) is a passerine bird endemic to Asia and listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

So what is a passerine bird? A passerine is any bird that belongs to the order Passeriformes. It is the largest order of birds that comprises half of all the bird species in the world. Passerines, also known as perching birds, generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their toes (three toes pointing forward and one pointing backwards), making perching easy. Many passerines have complex vocalisations, giving them another name - Songbirds.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, or IUCN Red List, is a database of the global conservation status of plant and animal species. It assesses the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies, categorising them into 7 major categories - Extinct (EX), Extinct in the Wild (EW), Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), Near Threatened (NT), and Least Concern (LC). The Red List helps identify species at the highest risk of extinction, guiding conservation strategies.

Identification

The

Indian paradise flycatcher looks extremely graceful, with the adult male displaying a long ribbon-like tail. The adult bird grows up to 19–22 cm long, while the tail of the adult male grows up to 30 cm (12 in). IPFC males occur in two colour morphs (physical difference in plumage colour), rufous and white. The male IPFC has a glossy black head, a blackish-blue crest, a black bill, and a distinct blue ring around the eye. The underparts are white, and the upperparts vary according to the morph. Female IPFC has a rufous-colored upper body, greyish throat, and greyish-white underparts. Young males look similar to females, except they have black throats and blue eyering. The eyering becomes one of the important markers during identification in the field. I have also come across a moulting male, displaying the transition from rufous to white.

Adult male Adult female Juvenile male

Sub-adult male Moulting male

Habitat & Behavior

IPFC is a migratory species native to the Indian subcontinent. It spends the winter season in tropical Asia and is commonly found across deciduous and evergreen forests, green wooded areas, mangroves, and green urban spaces.

Paradise flycatchers are monogamous (the pair bonds to raise the offspring), and their breeding season lasts from May to July.

IPFC usually feed on insects and flies, capturing the prey in the air and killing it by hitting it on a branch before extracting their inner parts.

In Pune, Sinhagad valley, a densely wooded area at the base of Sinhagad fort, is one of the best places to see and photograph the Indian paradise flycatcher. Here, the perches around the small waterbodies give an excellent opportunity to observe their behaviour, like feeding, displaying, and bathing.

Leucistic IPFC male with butterfly kill

From the Fieldbook

In my birdwatching journey, I have been fortunate enough to record various life stages of the Indian paradise flycatcher - juvenile, sub-adult, adult male, adult female, and moulting male. Out of all this, however, I was lucky to record a Leucistic Indian paradise flycatcher.

Leucism is a genetic condition that leads to the partial loss of pigmentation in animals. This results in white or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, etc. Leucism is different from Albinism, which is characterised by complete white colouration with pink or red eyes, which is caused by a lack of melanin. Eye colour is an essential factor in differentiating Leucism from Albinism, as Leucistic individuals retain their actual eye colour.

Plumage color transition in Leucistic IPFC male (March 2017, January 2019, December 2019)

I recorded this leucistic male from 2017 to 2019, and the white colouration significantly increased over the duration. The initial record shows the loss of color only in crest feathers and later spreads across most of the head. In 2023, Bombay Natural History Society published an article about this individual in the Hornbill's April to June issue, under the title Wonder of Nature.

Article published in BNHS Hornbill magazine's April-June 2023 issue

This concludes my first blog in the series 'My Avian Diary.' If you liked this blog, please leave a Comment and Like. If you have any feedback, you can reach out to me via email, my Instagram page, or through the enquiry form on the Contact page.

LOVE. CONSERVE. SUSTAIN.