Taiga Flycatcher

The taiga, or red-throated, flycatcher is a migratory bird of the flycatcher family, formerly considered a subspecies of the red-breasted flycatcher. The female has brown upperparts and a blackish tail flanked by white, with a buffish breast and mostly white underparts; the male has blue-tinged grey ear coverts and neck sides, and breeding males have an orange-red throat. Unlike the taiga flycatcher, the female red-breasted flycatcher has a brown tail, and the red in breeding males extends to the breast (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in northern Eurasia from eastern Russia to Siberia and Mongolia and is a winter visitor to South and Southeast Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Vietnam and Japan. The genus name is Latin for a small fig-eating bird, supposed to change into the blackcap in winter. SoIB 2023 lists it as a winter migrant of forest and plantation that eats invertebrates, without a priority category (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).