Malaysian Birds - Flycatchers

These are small birds with flatten bills. They may be in blue, brown or grey in colors. World wide there 116 species and of which 42 can be spotted in South-East Countries. From the list below, 33 species was reported seen in Malaysia.

This is one kind of birds that makes bird watching interesting. They are small and most of them on the list are either migrants or passage migrants. It is an annual wait for the period of time each years when the birds are southbound and returning north. Some return to the same locality while others are waiting to be spotted.

For such a large number of birds, I made my personal selection in grouping them into 3 pages to keep the number of birds small as well seeking some similarity for easy references.

These small birds have one feature in common and that is using the rictual bristles to catch flying insects. As for habits, many of them seek regular perch. i.e. opting for the favorite perch and returning to the same perch the whole day or season. Well, some may not but still hang around the vicinity of the tiny locality.

Most of the Flycatchers have weak songs, more like murmuring while a couple have louder whispers.

They are usually alone and perhaps another Flycatcher in the nearby area, but I have yet to see them acting in pair.

Looking for the small Flycatchers is always an interesting task. May they be the normal colorful Flycatchers or the "Blue" Flycatchers. Many of these birds are winter visitors to our country. There must be so much of them in the forest  but not easily seen. They remain in their individual one small location all by themselves. Though being at the right spot, the bird easily encountered, but there is still a task of combing teh forest for them. Those locally available Flycatchers are easy to photograph as typical of Flycatchers, they stay around the same area though not in the same spot as those migrant.

Lastly there is another small number of Flycatchers who are passage migrants. Meeting up with these birds are merely by chance.

There are approximately 55 species and subspecies in this genus named as Copsychus. Small passerine insectivores with weak songs and harsh calls. Sometimes they are refer as "Magpies". So called, as they are believed to be so noisy that the term ‘magpie’ is used for humans who chatter too much is hence applied to them. Contrary to this "hear-say" term, the real Robins are rather shy and unobtrusive birds. Here are some names which are no strangers to many birders.

 While preparing the pages on birds, sometimes it would be good to mention birds sharing close traits with those birds featured in this page. That's why the Shama are mentioned. Though having mentioned their names and the co-relation, Shama are posted as separate pages.

So this page, exclusively is one on Robin.

2. Rufous-headed Robin

4. White-tailed Robin

This is an extreme situation when the Oriental Magpie Robin is the most common bird in Malaysia and seen in almost all environment. Then in contrast, there are the 2 other Robins which are hardly seen and needed much effort to locate.

So if you are visiting the country, the White-tailed is not that difficult. The Siberian Blue Robin, you need contacts locally to show you the spots.