The Cyprus wheatear or Cyprus pied wheatear is a small, 14–15 cm long passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae. It was formerly treated as a subspecies (race) of pied wheatear but Sluys and van den Berg (1982) argued that the form deserved full species status, on the basis of differences in biometrics and especially song, and the lack of sexual plumage dimorphism in cypriaca.
The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World, with the exception of several vagrants and two species, bluethroat and northern wheatear, found also in North America. These are mainly small arboreal insectivores, many of which, as the name implies, take their prey on the wing. The family is relatively large and includes 351 species which are divided into 54 genera.
Tree warblers are medium-sized warblers in the marsh- and tree-warbler family Acrocephalidae. They are found in Europe, Africa and western Asia. Until recently, they were all classified in the single genus Hippolais.
The family Vangidae comprises a group of often shrike-like medium-sized birds distributed from Asia to Africa, including the vangas of Madagascar to which the family owes its name. Many species in this family were previously classified elsewhere in other families. Recent molecular techniques made it possible to assign these species to Vangidae, thereby solving several taxonomic enigmas. The family contains 40 species divided into 21 genera.
The European pied flycatcher is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. One of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers, it hybridizes to a limited extent with the collared flycatcher. It breeds in most of Europe and across the Western Palearctic. It is migratory, wintering mainly in tropical Africa. It usually builds its nests in holes on oak trees. This species practices polygyny, usually bigamy, with the male travelling large distances to acquire a second mate. The male will mate with the secondary female and then return to the primary female in order to help with aspects of child rearing, such as feeding.
The collared flycatcher is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family, one of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers. It breeds in southeast Europe and Eastern France to the Balkan Peninsula and Ukraine and is migratory, wintering in sub Sahara Africa. It is a rare vagrant in western Europe.
The red-breasted flycatcher is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. It breeds in eastern Europe and across Central Asia and is migratory, wintering in south Asia. It is a regular passage migrant in western Europe, whereas the collared flycatcher which breeds further east is rare. This is because of the different migration direction. The Asian species Ficedula albicilla, previously considered a subspecies of the red-breasted flycatcher, has the red throat surrounded by grey and a different song. It is usually now separated as the taiga flycatcher.
The semicollared flycatcher is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family, one of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers. It breeds in montane forests of the southeastern corner of Europe to Northwest Iran. It is migratory, wintering in Central and Eastern Africa. It is a rare vagrant in western Europe. Tracking studies using geolocators have revealed that weather conditions during spring migration can have a large impact on the timing of Semicollared flycatcher migration and survival of adult birds.
The term Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers is used to refer to a group of similar-looking birds in the genus Ficedula:
The Ficedula flycatchers are a genus of Old World flycatchers. The genus is the largest in the family, containing around thirty species. They have sometimes been included in the genus Muscicapa. The genus is found in Europe, Asia and Africa. Several species are highly migratory, whereas other species are sedentary.
The rusty-tailed flycatcher is a small passerine bird in the flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It is found mainly in the northern regions of the Indian Subcontinent and some parts of southwest India, as well as pockets of Central Asia including Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The species is partially migratory, with the Central Asian populations migrating to India, as far as the southwest Indian coast along the Arabian Sea, to Karnataka and Kerala.
The yellow-rumped flycatcher, also known as Korean flycatcher or tricolor flycatcher, is a species of flycatcher found in eastern Asia. A distinctive species with almost no look-alike other than the narcissus flycatcher. It breeds in eastern Asia including parts of Mongolia, Transbaikal, southern China, Korea and western Japan. They winter in parts of the Malay Peninsula and South Asia.
The black-and-orange flycatcher or black-and-rufous flycatcher is a species of flycatcher endemic to the central and southern Western Ghats, the Nilgiris and Palni hill ranges in southern India. It is unique among the Ficedula flycatchers in having rufous coloration on its back and prior to molecular studies was suggested to be related to the chats and thrushes.
The mugimaki flycatcher is a small passerine bird of eastern Asia belonging to the genus Ficedula in the Old World flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. The name "mugimaki" comes from Japanese and means "wheat-sower". The bird is also known as the robin flycatcher.
The pied monarch is a species of bird in the monarch-flycatcher family, Monarchidae. It is endemic to coastal Queensland in Australia.
The pygmy flycatcher, also known as the pygmy blue-flycatcher, is a bird species of the family Muscicapidae.
Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide by Pamela C. Rasmussen and John C. Anderton is a two-volume ornithological handbook, covering the birds of South Asia, published in 2005 by the Smithsonian Institution and Lynx Edicions. The geographical scope of the book covers India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, the Chagos Archipelago and Afghanistan. In total, 1508 species are covered. Two notable aspects of Birds of South Asia are its distribution evidence-base — the book's authors based their distributional information almost completely on museum specimens — and its taxonomic approach, involving a large number of species-level splits.
