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White-Tailed Crested Flycatcher | Elminia albonotata
Bergkuifvliegenvanger | Elminia Coliblanca
The White-Tailed Crested Flycatcher is a small grey, black and white bird of montane forest that constantly opens its tail like a fan while drooping its wings. In southern Africa it is one of the characteristic species of Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands and the mountain forests of Mozambique and Malawi.
Voice
A rapid series of high, sibilant and tinkling notes, tsip-tsip-tsheeu-tsee, often ending in a trill. The contact call is a dry chik. It calls almost continuously while foraging, and is heard sooner than seen.
Recording: Lars Lachmann — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm. Head, throat and breast are dark slate to blackish, with a short crest that is often raised. Mantle and back are slate-grey, the wings darker. The belly is white and contrasts sharply with the dark breast. The tail is black with white outer feathers and white tips, which flash as a white border when it is fanned. Bill and legs are black. Sexes alike; juveniles are browner with pale spots. Extremely active, with drooped wings and a swinging tail.
Confusion species
The male Blue-Mantled Crested Flycatcher Trochocercus cyanomelas has a glossy black crested head, a blue-grey back and no white in the tail; the female is grey with a white throat. White-Tailed Blue Flycatcher Elminia albicauda of Zambia, Angola and northern Malawi is bluer and more uniform, with a blue-grey rather than dark breast. Cape Batis Batis capensis is stocky and short-tailed, with a yellow eye.
Habitat
Montane and submontane forest, especially the middle and lower canopy, forest edge, dense growth along mountain streams and old overgrown plantations, mostly above about 1000 metres. It often joins mixed flocks of insectivores.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In southern Africa in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands (Nyanga, Bvumba, Chimanimani) and the adjoining mountains of Mozambique (Chimanimani, Gorongosa, Namuli and other isolated mountains), in the highlands of Malawi from Mulanje and Zomba north to Nyika and Misuku, and in north-eastern Zambia (Nyika, Mafinga). Further north through the mountains of Tanzania and Kenya to Uganda and eastern DR Congo.
- 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
The Bvumba forest near Mutare, especially around Seldomseen and the Bunga forest reserves, and Chowo forest on Nyika are reliable sites. Walk slowly along a forest trail and watch for a small bird darting through the gloom with a spread, white-edged tail. A mixed flock is often the best lead.
Conservation status
Not threatened; common in suitable montane forest. In southern Africa, however, its habitat is fragmented and vulnerable to logging, forest fires and conversion to farmland and pine plantations, especially on the isolated mountains of Mozambique and Malawi.
Scientific name
Elminia albonotata | (Sharpe, 1891)
Sharpe described the species in 1891 as Trochocercus albonotatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Elminia was introduced in 1854 by Bonaparte. Elminia is named after St Georges d'Elmina, a port on the former Dutch Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). albonotata is Latin for 'white-marked', from albus, 'white', and notatus, 'marked' — for the white edges of the tail. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mount Elgon, Kenya–Uganda border.