Nilgiri Flycatcher

The Nilgiri flycatcher is a small, somewhat long-tailed Old World flycatcher, about 13 cm long, with a very restricted range in the hills of southern India, mostly above 1,200 m in the Nilgiris, Palni Hills, Anaimalai Hills, Brahmagiri, Bababudan Hills and Biligiriranga Hills. It was formerly called the Nilgiri verditer flycatcher because of its similarity to the verditer flycatcher, a winter migrant to the Nilgiris, which however has distinct dark lores and a lighter shade of blue. It has two small white patches at the base of the tail, is much darker than the verditer, and has a black bill and legs and a dark brown iris; the female is duller, dark brown above and dark grey below (Wikipedia, general species account).

It forages mainly in the lower storey but can sometimes be found on top of the canopy. The song is a series of rich warbling notes, somewhat like the pied bushchat's, and the usual call a soft nasal chipping eep. The breeding season is March to June, with peak egg-laying in April, in a cup nest of mosses and lichens with some feathers, not very well lined. SoIB 2023 treats it as a Western Ghats endemic and rates it a Moderate conservation priority, with a Restricted range of about 33,000 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).