Leaden flycatcher

The leaden flycatcher was first described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801, from an illustration of a female bird in the Watling drawings. He coined the English name "red-breasted tody" and classified it in the genus Todus.{{cite book | last=Latham | first=John | author-link=John Latham (ornithologist) | year=1801 | title=Supplementum indicis ornithologici sive systematis ornithologiae | place=London | publisher=Leigh & Sotheby | language=la | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/33261406 | page=xxxii }}Boles (The Robins and Flycatchers of Australia), p. 322 Its specific name, rubecula, comes from the Latin for robin.{{cite book |title=A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names |last=Jobling |first=James A |year=1991 |publisher=OUP |isbn=0 19 854634 3}} A local name around Sydney is frogbird, derived from its guttural call.Boles (The Robins and Flycatchers of Australia), p. 320 Other variants of its common name include blue- or leaden-coloured flycatcher, leaden Myiagra and leaden Myiagra flycatcher.{{Cite web|url=http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp?avibaseid=CCCF40F2B83287B0|title=Myiagra rubecula - Avibase|website=avibase.bsc-eoc.org|access-date=2017-01-24}}

The leaden flycatcher is a member of a group of birds termed monarch flycatchers. This group is considered either as a subfamily Monarchinae, together with the fantails as part of the drongo family Dicruridae,{{cite book |title=The Taxonomy and Species of Birds of Australia and its Territories|vauthors=Christidis L, Boles WE |year=1994 |publisher=RAOU|location=Melbourne }} or as a family Monarchidae in its own right.{{cite book |title=Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds|vauthors=Christidis L, Boles WE |year=2008 |publisher=CSIRO Publishing |location=Canberra |isbn=978-0-643-06511-6 |pages=174}} They are not closely related to either their namesakes, the Old World flycatchers of the family Muscicapidae; early molecular research in the late 1980s and early 1990s revealed the monarchs belong to a large group of mainly Australasian birds known as the Corvida parvorder comprising many tropical and Australian passerines.Sibley, Charles Gald & Ahlquist, Jon Edward (1990): Phylogeny and classification of birds. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn. More recently, the grouping has been refined somewhat as the monarchs have been classified in a 'Core corvine' group with the crows and ravens, shrikes, birds of paradise, fantails, drongos and mudnest builders.{{cite book |vauthors=Cracraft J, Barker FK, Braun M, Harshman J, Dyke GJ, Feinstein J, Stanley S, Cibois A, Schikler P, Beresford P, García-Moreno J, Sorenson MD, Yuri T, Mindell DP |veditors=Cracraft J, Donoghue MJ |title=Assembling the tree of life |year=2004|publisher=Oxford Univ. Press |location=New York|isbn=0-19-517234-5 |pages=468–89 |chapter=Phylogenetic relationships among modern birds (Neornithes): toward an avian tree of life}}

There are six subspecies recognized:{{Cite journal|title=IOC World Bird List 6.4|url=http://www.worldbirdnames.org/ioc-lists/crossref|journal=IOC World Bird List Datasets|doi=10.14344/ioc.ml.6.4|doi-access=free}}

• M. r. sciurorum - Rothschild & Hartert, 1918: Found on the D'Entrecasteaux Islands and the Louisiade Archipelago
• M. r. papuana - Rothschild & Hartert, 1918: Found on southern and south-eastern New Guinea, islands of the Torres Strait
• Pretty flycatcher (M. r. concinna) - Gould, 1848: Originally described as a separate species. Found in north-western and north-central Australia.
• M. r. okyri - Schodde & Mason, IJ, 1999: An unusual non-migratory form found on Cape York Peninsula (north-eastern Australia). The specific epithet is an anagram of yorki. The holotype was collected from Coen in northern Queensland.{{cite book |title=The Directory of Australian Birds : Passerines. A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories. |vauthors=Schodde R, Mason IJ |year=1999 |publisher=CSIRO Publishing |location=Collingwood, Australia |pages=510}}
• M. r. yorki - Mathews, 1912: Found in north-eastern and eastern Australia
• M. r. rubecula - (Latham, 1801): Found in south-eastern Australia.

File:Myiagra rubecula (female).jpg

The leaden flycatcher is 14.5–16 cm (6-6½ in) long and weighs around 10–15 g. It is a shiny lead-grey in colour with a brownish tinge to the wings, a bluish black bill, black legs and dark brown iris. The male has darker grey lores, and a white breast and belly, while the female has an orange-tan throat and breast with a white belly. The juvenile resembles the adult female, but with paler wing-edges.Boles (The Robins and Flycatchers of Australia), p. 325

The leaden flycatcher is found from King Sound in northwestern Australia, across the Top End to Cape York, and then down the east coast to central-southern Victoria. It is rare in Tasmania. It is highly migratory within this range. Sclerophyll forest, rainforest margins, mangroves and coastal scrub are the preferred habitats.{{cite book | last = Beruldsen | first = G | title = Australian Birds: Their Nests and Eggs | publisher = self | year = 2003 | location = Kenmore Hills, Qld | pages = 367–68| isbn = 0-646-42798-9}}

As its name suggests, the leaden flycatcher is insectivorous. A very active and agile bird, it hops between branches and catches insects in flight.

Breeding season is September to February with one brood raised. The nest is a deep cup made of strips of bark and dry grass, woven together with spider webs and decorated with lichen, generally sited on a small branch well away from the trunk of a sizeable tree some 5–10 m above the ground. Two or three white eggs tinted bluish, greyish or lavender and splotched with dark grey-brown are laid measuring 17 mm x 14 mm. They have an unusual swollen oval shape. The species is parasitised by the brush cuckoo (Cacomantis variolosus). Both sexes incubate the eggs and brood the chicks, although the female undertakes slightly more of the duties and also incubates at night.Trémont S. & H. Ford (2000) "Partitioning of Parental Care in the Leaden Flycatcher". Emu 100 (1): 1 – 11 {{doi|10.1071/MU9834}} Nesting success is low, with only 23% of nests successfully fledging a chick.

File:Leaden Flycatcher rushck.ogg

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{{Reflist|2}}

• {{cite book |title=The Robins and Flycatchers of Australia |last=Boles |first=Walter E.|year=1988 |publisher=Angus & Robertson |location=Sydney |isbn=0-207-15400-7}}

{{Commons category|Myiagra rubecula}}

{{Wikispecies|Myiagra rubecula}}

• {{cite web | title=First Fleet artwork collection: The Watling collection: Red-breasted Tody | url=http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/art-nature-imaging/collections/first-fleet/art-collection/collections.dsml?lastDisp=list&stype=colls&coll=watling&beginIndex=245 | publisher=Natural History Museum | place=London }}

{{Monarchidae|2}}

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leaden flycatcher

Category:Birds of southern New Guinea

Category:Birds of Australia

leaden flycatcher

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Category:Taxonomy articles created by Polbot