White-bellied Blue Flycatcher

The white-bellied blue flycatcher is a small flycatcher endemic to the Western Ghats, in dense forest and sholas from south of Mahabaleshwar through the Nilgiris and the Biligirirangan Hills to southern Tamil Nadu and Kerala, mainly in hill forests from the foothills to about 1,700 m in the Nilgiris. Males are dark blue with a lighter blue brow, dark grey lores and face, and a white belly bordered by a smoky grey wash; females are olive-brown above with whitish lores and a rufous throat and breast fading to white towards the belly (Wikipedia, general species account).

It forages in the undergrowth in the shade of dense forest canopy, making aerial forays to capture insects, and tends to be quiet and inactive. It has a very low song, audible only at close quarters, a rambling series of rising and falling broken notes interspersed with clicks and squeaks. The usual clutch is four pale sea-green eggs with brown spotting. SoIB 2023 treats it as a Western Ghats endemic and rates it a High conservation priority, with a Moderate range of about 97,000 km², a rapid long-term decline of about 80% and a current decline of about 4.8% a year (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).