Red-bellied Paradise-flycatcher
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Photo] Red-bellied Paradise-flycatcher (Terpsiphone rufiventer). Bird Stamp of Ghana, 1994. Source: http://www.bird-stamps.org/species/140019.htm

The Black-headed Paradise-flycatcher (Terpsiphone rufiventer), also known as the Red-bellied Paradise-flycatcher, is a medium-sized passerine bird. It was previously classified with the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae, but the paradise-flycatchers, monarch flycatchers and Australasian fantails are now normally grouped with the drongos in the family Dicruridae, which has most of its members in Australasia and tropical southern Asia.

However, the Red-bellied Paradise-flycatcher is a common resident breeder in tropical western Africa south of the Sahara Desert. This species is usually found in thick forests and other well-wooded habitats. Two eggs are laid in a tiny cup nest in a tree.

The adult male of this species is about 17 cm long, but the long tail streamers nearly double the birds length. It has a black head, and the rest of the plumage is chestnut, other than a prominent black wingbar. The female is duller and lacks the tail streamers. Young birds are plain brown.

The males show considerable variation in plumage in some areas. There is a morph of this species in which the male has the chestnut parts of the plumage replaced by white, and some races have black tail streamers.

The Red-bellied Paradise-flycatcher is a noisy bird with a sharp zweetcall. It has short legs and sits very upright whilst perched prominently, like a shrike. It is insectivorous, often hunting by flycatching.

The black-bellied African Paradise-flycatcher, Terpsiphone viridis, is closely related to this species, and hybrids occur with the underparts a mixture of black and red.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-bellied_Paradise-flycatcher

The text in this page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article shown in above URL. It is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.