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Livingstone's Flycatcher | Erythrocercus livingstonei
Grijskopelfmonarch | Monarca de Livingstone
Livingstone's Flycatcher is a small, restless bird with a grey head, yellow underparts and a rufous tail that is constantly fanned and swung from side to side. It belongs to the small family of the Erythrocercidae, found only in Africa, and lives in groups in dense riverine growth and lowland forest from the Zambezi basin to the coast of Mozambique.
Voice
A rapid, thin, sibilant twitter, tsip-tsip-tseep, almost continuous while foraging. The song is a high, fast series of clear chirping notes ending in a short trill. Groups are usually noticed first by sound.
Recording: David C. Moyer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
12 cm, much of it tail. Head grey, with a narrow pale eye-ring; mantle and wings olive-green. Throat, breast and belly bright yellow, olive on the flanks. Rump and tail are warm rufous; the tail has a row of small dark subterminal spots and pale tips, clearly visible when fanned. The bill is short and dark, the legs flesh-coloured. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller, with an olive head. It moves constantly through the foliage, with drooped wings and a fanned, swinging tail, and makes short flycatching sallies.
Confusion species
Yellow-Breasted Apalis Apalis flavida also has a grey head and green back, but a white throat, a long olive-grey tail and a red or pale iris. Southern Yellow White-Eye Zosterops anderssoni has a conspicuous white eye-ring and a green tail. A female African Paradise Flycatcher Terpsiphone viridis also has a rufous tail, but is much larger, with a dark head, a blue eye-ring and grey underparts. Yellow-Bellied Hyliota Hyliota flavigaster is black and white above and lives high in miombo. No other bird in the region combines yellow underparts with a fanned rufous tail.
Habitat
Dense riverine forest and riparian growth, dry lowland forest and coastal forest, dense understorey and creepers at forest edges, mostly below about 1000 m. It forages in the lower and middle strata in groups of three to six birds and often joins mixed flocks of white-eyes, apalises and flycatchers. It eats small insects gleaned from leaves or caught in the air.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region in the lowlands of the Zambezi basin and the east coast: in Zambia in the Luangwa Valley and along the middle Zambezi, in Zimbabwe in the Zambezi Valley and locally in the south-eastern lowveld, in Malawi along the shores of Lake Malawi and in the Shire Valley, and in Mozambique over much of the central and northern lowlands. Beyond the region only in south-eastern Tanzania.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the dense riverine growth of Mana Pools, the Lower Zambezi, South Luangwa and Liwonde look for a mixed flock of small birds and listen for the sibilant twitter. Livingstone's Flycatcher then stands out by its rufous, fanned tail that swings constantly. It rarely sits still, so aim your binoculars where the flock is moving.
Conservation status
Not threatened; locally fairly common in suitable habitat. Sensitive to the loss of riverine forest and dense lowland forest through clearance, farming and fire.
Scientific name
Erythrocercus livingstonei | Gray, 1870
Gray described the species in 1870 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Erythrocercus was introduced in 1857 by Hartlaub. Erythrocercus comes from the Greek eruthros, 'red', and kerkos, 'tail' — for the rufous tail of these small flycatchers. livingstonei honours the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813–1873), who explored the Zambezi region. The specimen the first description was based on came from Zumbo, Zambia–Mozambique border.