Chinese Rubythroat

The Chinese rubythroat is a small passerine of the family Muscicapidae, formerly considered conspecific with the Himalayan rubythroat, together called the white-tailed rubythroat. It is found in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia and Thailand, breeding along the edge of the Tibetan plateau and wintering to its south from Nepal to Assam. The male is slaty brown above with a white forehead and eyebrow, brownish wings and a blackish tail with white base and tips, and it is closely related to the Siberian rubythroat, which lacks the white tail tips and bases (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is usually seen singly or in pairs in the breeding season, feeding mainly on small insects; the male sings through the day from an exposed perch, a series of squeaky notes with a lot of variation, with a sharp yapping skyap as alarm. In the Tien Shan it is found in thickets of juniper elfin at 2,500–2,700 m. Four to six eggs are laid, incubated mostly by the female, with both parents feeding the nestlings. SoIB 2023 rates it a Moderate conservation priority, a winter migrant and localised summer migrant of grassland with a Restricted range of about 13,900 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).