Narcissus Flycatcher Ficedula narcissina 黃眉姬鶲
Category I. Uncommon passage migrant in variable numbers, mainly in spring.
IDENTIFICATION
Mar. 2019, Michelle and Peter Wong. Adult male.
13–13·5 cm. A medium-sized flycatcher, the adult male has black crown and upperparts contrasting with a broad yellow supercilium, yellow lower back and rump and orange-yellow throat and breast that grades into a white lower belly and vent. There is a broad white patch on the inner wing-coverts.
May 2019, Michelle and Peter Wong. Adult female.
Adult females are grey-brown or olive above with no more than faint wing-bars. The rump is tinged olive while the upper-tail coverts and outer tail are tinged rufous brown. Dark mottling on the throat and breast sometimes forms a complete breast-band. Occasional birds have a pale-yellow line up the belly centre. Some females can show pale yellow-toned underparts and olive upperparts inviting confusion with Green-backed Flycatcher F. elisae (Bakewell et al. 2022), although the latter species is brighter yellow on the underparts and any mottling is indistinct.
Mar. 2016, Guy Miller. Second calendar-year male.
Second calendar-year males in spring often show signs of adult male plumage. The white wing patch is reduced or absent, and the wings and some wing coverts are brown. Some second calendar-year males, however, may be much far less advanced in moult and show a lemon-yellow wash to the underparts, a yellow tone to the rump and white inner median and greater coverts like first-calendar-year birds in autumn.
Note that away from the breeding grounds, female and immature Narcissus Flycatchers may be very difficult to separate from female and immature Ryukyu Flycatchers Ficedula owstoni. See Bakewell et al. (2021) for differences between these two species in female and immature plumages.
VOCALISATIONS
Two calls are heard in HK, a moderately high-pitched short and sharply downslurred ‘weet’ often interspersed with a short rattle; the latter is very similar to the call of Yellow-rumped Flycatcher, while the ‘weet’ note is slightly higher in pitch.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Recorded in widespread locations where suitable wooded cover for migrants occurs, including urban parks. Favoured sites include Po Toi and Ho Man Tin.
OCCURRENCE
An uncommon passage migrant mainly in spring when extreme dates are 17 March and 22 May. The main passage period is from the last week of March to the third week of April, with a clear peak in the first week of April (Figure 1). This is slightly earlier than was the case in the period 1958 to 1998. Passage tails off during the last week of April and there are few records after the first week of May. Most records are of single birds but there are occasions where several may occur in the same general area, the highest count being eight Mount Davis on 7 April 2020.
Not recorded in autumn in before 2007, it has since been seen nearly annually (except for 2010 and 2014) between 7 October and 16 December, albeit in very small numbers with no more than three individuals in any one year.
From 1999 to 2020 the estimated annual number of individuals varied from zero in 2002 to an exceptional 97 in 2020. This variability is weather-related with higher numbers occurring during bad weather in spring, especially during periods of heavy rain as was the case in early April 2020. Most records are of males but an increasing proportion of females are now being reported, possibly due to improved awareness of their appearance.
The first records for HK consisted of single males at Pok Fu Lam on 25 April 1938, at Lam Tsuen during 18-24 April 1941 and at Stanley in the second half of April 1945 (Herklots 1938, 1941, 1957).
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Usually solitary, it can be elusive at times, especially when it perches high in trees. Forages at all levels of the canopy and understorey, flycatching from perches.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Previously considered conspecific with Green-backed Flycatcher F. elisae and Ryukyu Flycatcher F. owstoni.
Narcissus Flycatcher breeds in coastal Ussuriland, Sakhalin, the south Kuril Islands and Japan south to Kyushu; it winters in the Philippines, Borneo and Java (Clement et al. 2020, Craik and Minh 2018, Eaton et al. 2016). In China it occurs as a migrant through eastern coastal provinces from Hebei in the north to Guangxi in the south (Liu and Chen 2021).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend stable.
Figure 1.
Bakewell, D. N., P. D. Round, A. Jearwattanakanok, J. A. Eaton, P. Jong-Gil, and Y. Shigeta (2021). Identification of the Narcissus Flycatcher-Yellow-rumped Flycatcher complex in subadult and female plumages. BirdingAsia 36: 22-34.
Clement, P., J. del Hoyo, D. A. Christie, N. Collar, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Narcissus Flycatcher (Ficedula narcissina), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.narfly.01
Craik, R.C. and Lê Quý Minh (2018). Birds of Vietnam. Lynx and Bird Life International Field Guides. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
Eaton, J. A., B. van Balen, N. W. Brickle and F. E. Rheindt (2016). Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago, Greater Sundas and Wallacea. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
Herklots, G. A. C. (1938). Notes and comments. Ornithology. Hong Kong Naturalist 9: 87-88.
Herklots, G. A. C. (1941). Notes and comments. Ornithology. Hong Kong Naturalist 10: 223-231.
Herklots, G. A. C. (1957). Hong Kong Birds. South China Morning Post, Hong Kong.
Liu, Y. and S. H. Chen (eds) (2021). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House.
