Lively, Arboreal, Summer Visitor… Leaden Flycatcher

By Keith Hutton on November 15, 2013 in Other

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Back in September I went to have a look around and check out the wildlife. It was a bright, fresh, sunny afternoon after a few light showers, with birds everywhere. There were black ducks, hardheads, coots, grebes and swans on the water, cormorants perched in dead trees, and white ibises probing around the edge of the pond accompanied by starlings and peewees. Swallows were skimming low over the water and flitting around up to tree height, and a few hidden reed warblers were singing in the scrub. Fairy wrens, honeyeaters and noisy wattlebirds occasionally showed themselves and a Willie Wagtail was tottering and stumbling in the breeze catching fast-moving insects; a family of Red-browed Finches flashed past.

On the far side of the dark water a lone she-oak appeared to be surviving in a patch of flooded dead trees. Between the top of the she-oak and the dead trees, a lively little bird was darting about, grey and white, glossy in the sun, and constantly in motion. When perched briefly between short erratic flights it wagged and quivered its tail, then flew off again chasing insects in the air, always on the move. This was a highlight for the day; a migrant adult male Leaden Flycatcher, scarce and irregular in the Eastern Suburbs, just arrived!

Leaden Flycatchers resemble Willie Wagtails in general shape but they are a bit smaller and appear neater and tidier. Adult males are dark blue-grey in colour with a leaden head and upper breast, and white lower breast and belly. The light has a remarkable effect on their appearance and they may seem quite dull in the shade, but shiny, handsome and resplendent in sunlight. Females are very different and grey-brown above, bluer on the head and with a rusty buff throat and upper breast. Immature birds resemble females.

Leaden Flycatchers in the Sydney region are annual summer migrants that visit to breed from September to April. They winter in northeast Queensland, New Guinea and Torres Strait. They live in coastal woodlands and scrubs, paperbarks, mangroves and riverside vegetation, and drier more open eucalypt forests inland, where they eat mostly insects that are usually caught in the air after a chase and, to a lesser extent, spiders taken directly from foliage.

Leaden Flycatchers are common to moderately common in their preferred habitats and populations appear to be stable. Nevertheless, it is reassuring to see local councils looking after disappearing habitats essential for maintaining biodiversity. The good range of birds at Randwick Environment Park suggests that the council management program is progressing well and achieving its objectives so far, both for proliferation of wildlife and for the enjoyment of people getting out and discovering new things.