Bar-winged flycatcher-shrike

Hemipus picatus

Photo by Mapalagama Premasiri (Oriental Bird Images)

Common name:
bar-winged flycatcher-shrike (en); largarteiro-de-asa-listada (pt); échenilleur gobemouche (fr); oruguero alibarrado (es); elsterraupenschmätzer (de)

Taxonomy:
Order Passeriformes
Family Campephagidae

Range:
This species is found from India and Nepal to southern China, and through Indochina into the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo.

Size:
These birds are 15 cm long and weigh 9-10 g.

Habitat:
The bar-winged flycatcher-shrike is mostly found in moist tropical forests, also using forest edges, moist scrublands, rural gardens and plantations.

Diet:
They hunt insects by gleaning the foliage and sallying out from a perch.

Breeding:
These birds breed in February-August. The nest is a neat cup made of lichens and spider webs, and lined with fine grasses and plant fibres. It is placed in the horizontal surface of a dead or leafless branch. There the female lays 2-3 pale greenish-white eggs with black and grey blotches. The eggs are incubated by both sexes but there is no information on the length of the incubation and fledgling periods.

Conservation:
IUCN status - LC (Least Concern)
This species has a very large breeding range and is described as locally common in the Indian subcontinent, common in Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka; locally common in South-East Asia and common in China. The population is suspected to be stable in the absence of evidence for any declines or substantial threats.