Taman Rimba Kiara is a little green gem located in a corner of the TTDI residential area. The above flowering tree, the firmiana malayana or mata lembu, flashes in testimony to man's care-less-ness - it's one of only two trees in the park that had flowered, since then the tree had been chopped down.

Sunday 10 March 2024

Which flycatcher?

It was almost an unfortunate exemplary case of hasty dismissal that I cold-storaged the following images thinking that it was that of an Asian brown flycatcher.
It kept to the upper canopy and with backlighting, it was easy to mistaken this one for the other.

Subsequent perusal suggests that this one could be the female of either the uncommon Blue-and-white Flycatcher (Cyanoptila cyanomelana) or Zappey's Flycatcher (Cyanoptila cumatilis).






Extract of singaporebirds.com:
the Blue-and white Flycatcher, "...Female has rather uniform brownish upperparts and breast with contrasting white belly and vent, whitish throat-patch and all black bill...."

Extract of eBird of the Blue-and-white Flycatcher :
"Female brown all over, with a smaller-headed profile than other brown flycatchers in range ...."
whilst of the Zappey's Flycatcher :
"Very similar to Blue-and-white Flycatcher ... Female and juveniles are essentially unidentifiable while on migration unless seen with an adult male ...."


By a series of references and comparisons, I am inclined to record this one as a female of the Blue-and-white Flycatcher (Sambar Biru Putih).  

What's in a name?
'Sambar Biru Putih' is a transliteration of blue white flycatcher.
Once upon a time this bird was known too as Sambar-Berlau Rengkung Hitam, 'berlau' could be an alternative spelling for 'belau' to mean laundry blue or washing blue, whilst 'rengkung' could mean either 'throat' or 'a type of tree with a large trunk and heavy foliage' and 'hitam' is black.



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