Blue-and-White Flycatcher

The Blue-and-White Flycatcher is called ‘oruri’ in japan. It is one of three Japanese  songbirds of the order Passeriformes that can twitter very beautifully. The other two species are Japanese Bush Warbler ( uguisu) and Japanese robin (komadori) In summer we can listen Blue-and-White Flycatcher’s beautiful twittering.

Description ＆ Taxonomy
The Blue-and-White Flycatcher is about 16 centimeters long with a wingspan of about 27 centimeters. The male’s back to tail is shiny blue and there are two white spots on base of tail. Throat and face are black and abdomen is white. Whereas female’s from head to tail is dark brown. Throat and abdomen are white. Chest and side are brown.

Blue-and-White Flycatcher is belongs to the Passeriformes order, Muscicapidae family, Cyanoptila genus. There is Luscinia cyane (koruri) that looks like Blue-and-White Flycatcher but they belong to Turdidae family. They are 14 centimeters long so they are a little smaller than Blue-and-White Flycatcher. They have black striations from eye to side surface of chest. Female’s upper surface and chest are green brown. Abdomen covered with white feather. So we can distinguish two species.

Range ＆ Ecology

The Blue-and-White Flycatcher is a summer bird. They winter in Southeast Asia. In the last ten days of April  they come to Japan. They propagate between Hokkaido to Okinawa in Japan and in October they go to Southeast Asia again.
They live in between mountainous zone to alpine zone. Especially they live in mountainous region and hill. Their food is insects. They make nest with moss in a hollow nearby mountain stream. In breeding season male twittering top of a tree. Then they swing their tail and don’t move there many hours.

Use ＆ Conservation

From ancient times they were drew in pictures and many people had them as a pet. Now we can’t have them as a pet. And they used in season word of summer. Umaji village (in Kochi) specify Blue-and-White Flycatcher as village’s bird and some other self-governing body too.

In japan 13 prefecture specify Blue-and-White Flycatcher to Red List because they are decreasing. Kochi doesn’t specify Blue-and-White Flycatcher to Red List. Blue-and-White Flycatcher is poached. They are beautiful and twittering beautifuly so they traded high price. This is the one of reason their number getting decrease.

Viewing

When you go to ravine in summer please watch hollow or high trees. There is Blue-and-White Flycatcher and they twittering very beautifully.

–by R. Utsunomiya