Habits
Usually singly or in twos. Sometimes in small family parties.
Food
Arthropods, mainly insects. Rarely seeds.
Voice
A deep, slightly harsh, guttural 'zhirrp', sigly or repeated. Also a strident, far-carrying 'see-hear, see-hear', 'see-kew, see-kew' or 'liprick, liprick'.
Nest
Cup-shaped, composed of bark bound with cobweb, lined with fine rootles and decorated with fragments of bark and lichen, usually built on a dead branch immediately below a living, leafy limb, usually 10 - 25 m above the ground.
Eggs (Guide)
3; white or tinged pale blue, spotted with grey-browns and underlying lavender marks, mainly around the center or at the larger end; rounded-oval; 17 x 14 mm. Incubation: 14 - 15 days; by both sexes.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fledge in 12 - 15 days.
Subspecies
Closely related to and often considered to form a superspecies with Steel-blue Flycatcher (Myiagra ferrocyanea), Makira Flycatcher (Myiagra cervinicauda), Melanesian Flycatcher (Myiagra caledonica), Vanikoro Flycatcher (Myiagra vanikorensis) and Samoan Flycatcher (Myiagra albiventris). Subspecies intergrade where they meet in Australia. A clinal increase in size from north to south.
The following 6 subspecies are recognised:
rubecula (Latham, 1801) - South-eastern Australia from the Clarence River Drainage Basin, inland to the slopes of the Great Divide and south and south-west to central-western Vic., and in winter extending north to north-eastern Queensland and occasionally south-central New Guinea.
concinna Gould, 1848 - Northern Australia from the Kimberley Divide, northern WA, east through Arnhem Land, NT to southern Gulf of Carpentaria, north-western Qld and south to the Fitzroy River Drainage, WA, Victoria and Roper River Drainages, NT and Gulf of Carpentaria Drainages, north-western Qld.
yorki Mathews, 1912 - North-eastern and central-eastern Australia from the Burdekin River Drainage, north-eastern Qld, south to New South Wales - Qld border and inland to the Great Divide, and in winter extending north to Cape York Peninsula, northern Qld.
papuana Rothschild & Hartert, 1918 - Savannas of southern New Guinea and probably on Boigu Island, northern Torres Strait.
sciurorum Rothschild & Hartert, 1918 - Archipelagoes of eastern New Guinea.
Similar Species
Female, juveniles and immatures with Broad-billed Flycatcher (Myiagra ruficollis) which has a much wider, triangular shaped bill, has glossier grey upperparts and has pale lores and male with male and female with female Satin Flycatcher (Myiagra cyanoleuca) which has darker upperparts.
Compare Images
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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BirdLife International Species Factsheet