This ball of feathers belongs to the typical
flycatcher family – Muscicapidae….. “musca”
in
latin means “Fly”. All the members of this
family
has a relatively small, short, vertically
(dorso-ventrally) flattened, and pointed beak
and
all of them show stout, well-developed bristles
(known as rictal bristles) at the gape of the
beak, which help increase the effectiveness at
catching flying insects. They also have the habit
of drooping wings and cocking tail....
Interestingly most flycatchers feed by sitting
on
a conspicuous perch until a flying insect is
spotted, which is then pursued and caught in an
aerial sally.Some species repeatedly return to
use a favorite perch for hunting, a behavior
which
can be useful when photographing flycatchers
(It
is a rewarding habit to observe such birds for
few mins first, before frantically rushing
behind
them for a shot) …… This chap was doing the
same,
but was also overlooking the female that was
busy
building the nest (the male did not
participate)….
That’s when we decided to leave him alone and
satisfy ourselves with only a record shot in the
dim
light :-(
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