Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike

The bar-winged flycatcher-shrike is a small, upright-perching bird with a black cap and black wings contrasting with a white body, a white slash across the wing and a white rump. The bill has a hooked tip. Males are velvety black and females greyish-brown, but the pattern varies between populations: in some both sexes have brown backs, and in the Sri Lankan form the sexes look alike. The tail is black with white outer feathers. Young birds have a broken white-and-grey pattern like lichen (Wikipedia, general species account).

It hunts insects in the mid-canopy of forest, often in mixed-species flocks, perching upright and flying out to glean prey. Its call is a rapid, high tsit-it-it-it or whriri-whirriri, sometimes a sharp chip, and in Sri Lanka pairs have been reported to duet with precision. SoIB 2023 lists it as a resident forest bird in India with a large range, finds a current increase of about 4% a year, and rates it a Low conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).