Black-and-orange Flycatcher

The black-and-orange, or black-and-rufous, flycatcher is a distinctly coloured flycatcher endemic to the central and southern Western Ghats, Nilgiris and Palni hill ranges, found mainly in high-elevation areas. It is unique among the Ficedula flycatchers in having rufous colouration on its back, and before molecular studies was suggested to be related to the chats and thrushes. The male is distinctly black-headed with black wings; the female has the black replaced by dark brown and a light eye ring (Wikipedia, general species account).

The main population is on the high plateaus above 1,500 m of the Nilgiris, Palani Hills, Biligiriranga Hills and Kannan Devan Hills, preferring areas with high leaf litter and undergrowth in open shola grassland. It is highly parochial, with no local movements other than dispersal of young, at a density of about 2.8 ha per pair in the breeding season, March to May, when it is very vocal, with a repetitive chee-ri-rirr or a whistling whee-chee-ree-rirr; the alarm call is zit-zit. Two greyish speckled eggs form the usual clutch. SoIB 2023 treats it as a Western Ghats endemic and rates it a Moderate conservation priority, with a Restricted range of about 24,500 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).