White-crowned Forktail

How to identify

Field marks

1. A conspicuous white patch on the forehead and crown
2. Black face, throat, and breast, sharply demarcated from the white belly
3. White rump and lower back
4. Long, deeply forked tail, black-and-white

Male, female and young

Juvenile has brownish-black upperparts, throat, and breast, brown flanks, and no conspicuous white crown.

Voice

Contact call is a high-pitched, loud, long whistle, like “tseee, tseee” or “zweeet”; alarm call is more grating, like “scree”.

Similar species

Spotted Forktail

White-crowned Forktail has a plain black back, while Spotted Forktail has spots on the back.

Slaty-backed Forktail

White-crowned Forktail has a plain black back, while Slaty-backed Forktail has a slate-gray back.

Black-backed Forktail

White-crowned Forktail has a longer tail and is larger.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: December–February and June–July · Most records: China, Malaysia, Thailand

White-crowned Forktail has been recorded at 382 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 9 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Danum Valley Borneo Rainforest LodgeMalaysia597 records
2. Danum Valley Field CentreMalaysia394 records
3. Jianfengling NNRChina289 records

Countries and regions with the most records

ChinaMalaysiaThailandIndonesiaIndiaVietnamMyanmar (Burma)Laos

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The Javan forktail or white-crowned forktail (Enicurus leschenaulti) is a species of forktail in the family Muscicapidae. Formally described in 1818, it has five subspecies, each occupying a different geographic range. The largest of the forktails, Enicurus leschenaulti, is between 25 and 28 centimetres (9.8 and 11.0 in) long.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions