On 5 February 2017 I was going to Nelliyampathy, watching the birds seen along the ghat road and photographing them. At around 8 am I noticed a bird sitting alone on a tree beside the road. I was able to take only two pictures of the bird before it flew off.

Praveen J., after consultation with several experts, identified the bird as a second cycle male Blue-and-white Flycatcher Cynoptila cynomelana, a new addition to the list of birds occurring in Kerala. The dark blue feathers on the sides of the breast ruled out the possibility of the similar looking Ultramarine Flycatcher Ficedula supecilaris or Zappey’s Flycatcher C. cumatilis; Dave Bakewell additionally commented that this is a second calendar year bird (Praveen, pers. comm.).

Blue-and-White Flycatcher has been reported from the Western Ghats are during the month of March mostly  (Barve & Kamath, 2016); they might be on their spring migration  from the wintering grounds in Taiwan, SE China and SE Asia to their breeding areas of north eastern Asia. It is assumed that, while returning, some of these birds take a detour through Andaman & Nicobar Islands and the mainland Indian subcontinent (Rajeshkumar et al., 2014).

Thanks to editors of eBird India for suggesting the species, Yong Ding Li, James Eaton and Dave Bakewell for confirming the id. I want to express my gratitude to Praveen for persuading me to write this note.

References

• Barve, M., & Kamath, R., 2016. More records of Blue-and-white Flycatcher Cyanoptila cyanomelana from the Western Ghats, India. Indian BIRDS 11 (1): 24.
• Rajeshkumar, S., Raghunathan, C., & Maheswaran, G., 2014. Blue-and-white Flycatcher Cyanoptila cyanomelana: First record for Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India. Indian BIRDS 9 (4): 104–105