The African blue flycatcher or blue-crested flycatcher (''Elminia longicauda'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the family Stenostiridae from western and central

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

Description

The African blue flycatcher is a dainty, pale, bright blue flycatcher with a short crest and long tail. The entire upper parts and tail are bright blue, shading between blue and

cyan Cyan () is the color between blue and green on the visible spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength between 500 and 520 nm, between the wavelengths of green and blue. In the subtractive color system, or CMYK c ...

, with black lores and black flight feathers edged with blue, the underparts are greyish blue fading to whitish on the belly. The bill and legs are black. Juveniles are duller with faint greyish spotting on the head and wing coverts. It measures in length and weighs .

Voice

The song of the African blue flycatcher is a series of slow, rather random and tuneless sibilant notes strung together in no particular order. Call is a quiet "''tsip''".

Distribution

The African blue flycatcher occurs from

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

and

Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...

east discontinuously to

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

and south through the eastern

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

to northern

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

Habitat

Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s are moist lowland

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s, mangrove forests, gallery forest,

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

s, gardens, wooded farmland and moist

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

Habits

The African blue flycatcher forages rather gracefully with a fanned tail and half open wings among leaves, as well as occasionally foraging on the ground and flycatching.

Taxonomy

The African blue flycatcher is thought to form a

superspecies In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

with the white-tailed blue flycatcher and these species ; the two have been placed in a separate genus ''Errannornis'', but the differences between this species pair and the other species classified in ''

Elminia ''Elminia'' is a genus of bird in the flycatcher family Stenostiridae. The genus is endemic to Africa. It contains the following species: * African blue flycatcher (''Elminia longicauda'') * White-tailed blue flycatcher (''Elminia albicauda'') ...

'' are considered insufficient to merit generic separation. Two

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of the African blue flycatcher are currently recognised. ''Elminia longicauda longicauda'' (Swainson, 1838) which is found in the western part of its range as far east as Nigeria, and the paler ''Elminia longicauda teresita'' Antinori, 1864 in the west and the south.

References

External links

Image at ADW
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3051593 Elminia Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa Birds described in 1838 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by William Swainson