White-spotted Fantail

The white-spotted fantail, or spot-breasted fantail, is a small passerine about 19 cm long, formerly considered a subspecies of the white-throated fantail. It has a dark fan-shaped tail edged in white and a white eyebrow and throat. The plumage is mainly slate grey above with a black eye mask, and whitish below with a grey breast band spotted white. It is found in forest, scrub and cultivation in southern and central India (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is insectivorous and often fans its tail as it moves through the undergrowth. The male's call is a fixed and unmistakable pattern of notes, valuable for detection and identification, and birds use the same song year after year with progressively small changes, so it sounds very different after four or five years. It lays three eggs in a small cup nest in a tree. SoIB 2023 treats it as endemic to mainland India and rates it a Low conservation priority, with a Large range of about 559,000 km² and a rapid long-term increase of about 136% (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).