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White-Eyed Slaty Flycatcher | Melaenornis fischeri
Bergdrongovliegenvanger | Papamoscas de Fischer
The White-Eyed Slaty Flycatcher is a grey, rather long-tailed flycatcher of East African montane forests. In the region it occurs only on the Nyika Plateau on the Malawi–Zambia border, home to the local subspecies nyikensis.
Voice
Inconspicuous. A thin, high tseep as a contact call and a short, scratchy song of high whistles and grating notes, tsee-tchurr-tsee, which includes some mimicry.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–17 cm, a large, slim flycatcher with a long tail. Head, upperparts and underparts are slate-grey, the underparts a little paler and the belly whitish; wings and tail are dark grey. Birds in the north of the range have a broad, striking white eye-ring, but the subspecies nyikensis has only a narrow greyish eye-ring. Bill and legs are black. The sexes are alike; juveniles are browner with pale spots above and dark scaling below. It sits upright on an open branch or post and drops to the ground, often in pairs.
Confusion species
African Dusky Flycatcher (Muscicapa adusta) is smaller and browner, with faint breast streaking and a short tail. Ashy Flycatcher (Fraseria caerulescens) is bluer grey, with a white loral stripe and a white throat, and lives in lowland and riverine forest. Pale Flycatcher (Agricola pallidus) is sandy brown and lives in low-lying woodland, not in the mountains. No other grey flycatchers are to be expected on the Nyika Plateau.
Habitat
Edges of Afromontane forest, forest clearings, copses in montane grassland and scrub along streams, on the Nyika Plateau mainly above 1800 m. It takes insects on the ground and in the air from a low lookout perch, and also visits camps and gardens around buildings.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region only on the Nyika Plateau in northern Malawi and adjacent north-eastern Zambia (subspecies nyikensis, which also occurs in the highlands of south-western Tanzania). Beyond the region in the mountains of East Africa, from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and eastern DR Congo to 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
On the Nyika Plateau it is easy to see around Chelinda, along forest edges and at the camps, where it perches on posts and low branches. Do not expect a striking white eye-ring: birds here have only a narrow grey ring, so they look more like a large, grey African Dusky Flycatcher.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in suitable montane forest; the Nyika Plateau is largely protected as a national park, although its forest remains vulnerable to fire.
Scientific name
Melaenornis fischeri | (Reichenow, 1884)
Reichenow described the species in 1884 as Dioptrornis Fischeri; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Melaenornis was introduced in 1840 by Gray. Melaenornis combines the Greek melas, feminine melaina, 'black', with ornis, 'bird' — for the all-black plumage of the type species. fischeri honours the German physician and explorer Gustav Fischer (1848–1886), who collected birds in East Africa. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mount Meru, Tanzania.