Zappey's Flycatcher

How to identify

Field marks

1. Male has greenish turquoise-blue upperparts
2. Greenish-black face and upper breast
3. Pure white underparts with slightly gray flanks
4. One small white patch on each side of the tail base

Male, female and young

Female is gray-brown rather than blue, with a white throat; one-year-old male has blue wings, rump, and tail, but a gray-brown head and upper back.

Similar species

Blue-and-white Flycatcher

Extremely similar and formerly treated as the same species; the blue and black of Zappey's Flycatcher have a greenish tinge, while those of Blue-and-white Flycatcher are deeper and richer.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: June and November · Most records: China, Thailand, Singapore

Zappey's Flycatcher has been recorded at 86 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 6 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Xiaolongmen National Forest ParkChina95 records
2. Tangjiahe NNRChina39 records
3. Doi Inthanon NP – Mae Ouam (Km 34.5)Thailand37 records

Countries and regions with the most records

ChinaThailandSingaporeMalaysiaIndonesiaLaos

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

Zappey's flycatcher (Cyanoptila cumatilis) is a songbird in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It is migratory, breeding in central China from central Sichuan northeast to the mountains west of Beijing, and wintering south to the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Java. It closely similar to, and was formerly considered to be conspecific with, the blue-and-white flycatcher, which breeds further east from northeastern China east to Japan.

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

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