Sighting of Whitebrowed Blue Flycatcher Muscicapa Superciliaris in Silent Valley, Kerala

1 Pages·1999·0.58 MB·

by  B Ajayakumar

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
SIGHTINGOF WHITEBROWEDBLUEFLYCATCHER
12.
MUSCICAPASUPERCILIARISINSILENTVALLEY,KERALA
The whitebrowed blue flycatcher author. The birdwas sitting inthe middle storey
(Muscicapa superciliaris) is a small bird that canopy of a Mallotus philippensis tree located
breeds in the Western Himalayas between 1800 in the ecotone region of an evergreen patch at
m
and 3200 (Ali and Ripley 1987). Its breeding SirandhriinSilentValley. Itsatatasafedistance
rangeextendsfromKohatinPakistantothenorth- fromaseeminglyrelatedspecies,therufoustailed
easternhillstates ofNagaland,Manipur,Assam, flycatcher (Muscicapa ruficauda), which is
Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh in India. common in the area. It moved from branch to
The bird winters in central India, branch at the time of observation, possibly in
occupying areas from Delhi down to southeast search of insects. It was seen for only five
Karnataka and northwest Andhra Pradesh, minutes, and then it flew away. Later study
covering northern Maharashtra, Orissa, Bengal confirmed the identity of the bird as a male
and Bihar (Ripley 1982, Ali and Ripley 1987). whitebrowed blue flycatcher Muscicapa
(
Recently, ithasbeen sightedat Shareneshwarin superciliaris).Thisspecieswasnotsightedagain
Sabarkantha, Gujarat (Khacher 1996). This in Silent Valley until May 1997.
implies that there is no record of the bird
migrating to the Western Ghats region. There is Acknowledgement
no report of its occuring further south than
southeastKarnataka. Itisnotrecordedsofarfrom We thank WWF-India, New Delhi, for
Kerala (Ali 1969, Ali and Ripley 1987, financial assistance.
Neelakantan 1996, Neelakantan et al. 1993).
On March 5, 1997, while monitoring August 25, 1997 B.AJAYAKUMAR
NAYAR
frugivorous birds in Silent Valley as part of a T.S.
project onkeystone species, a birdwith striking Division ofConservation Biology
colouring(blueupperpartswithprominentwhite TropicalBotanic Garden and
eyebrow extending to the nape and white Research Institute
underparts with prominent greyishband broken Palode, Thiruvananthapuram - 695 562,
by white on the breast) was seen by the first Kerala.
References
Ali,S.(1969): Birdsof Kerala.OxfordUniversityPress, Neelakantan,K.K.(1996):KeralathilePakshikal. Kerala
NewDelhi. SahityaAcademy,Thrissur.
Ali,S.&S.D. Ripley(1987): Handbookofthe Birdsof Neelakantan,K.K.,C.Sashjkumar&R. Venugopalan
India and Pakistan, Compact Edition. Oxford (1993): A Book of Kerala Birds. WWF-India,
UniversityPress,NewDelhi. Trivandrum.
Khacher, L. (1996): Whitebrowed Blue Flycatcher Ripley, S.D. (1982): A Synopsis ofthe Birds ofIndia
(.Muscicapasuperciliaris)Delineationofitswintering and Pakistan. Bombay Natural History Society,
rangeinWestIndia.J.Bombaynat.Hist.Soc.93:587-588. Bombay.
blacknaped blueflycatcherhypothymisazurea trapped
13.
IN THE WEB OF THE GIANT WOOD SPIDERNEPHILA MACULATA
InOctober 1996, 1 hadgonebirdwatching situated in Mumbai. I was observing a mixed
to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) hunting party of brown flycatcher Muscicapa
JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORYSOCIETY, 96(1), APR. 1999 145