Alternative name: Long-tailed Blue Robin
- Cinclidium frontale
Identification
18-20 cm.
Male
- Blackish-indigo plumage
- Shiny bluish forehead and shoulder
- Long, graduated tail
- White patch on underwing primary coverts
- Narrow whitish scaling on lower belly to vent
- Black bill
- Long, greyish legs
- orientale darker than nominate
Female
- Dusky olive-brown plumage
- Paler underparts with whitish throat and belly and white-tipped vent
Juveniles are dark brown with buff throat streaks and belly tips.
Similar species
Lacks white on tail of White-tailed Robin and has a smaller bill.
Distribution
Patchily in the Himalayas from eastern Nepal to Bhutan, northeast India and southwest China (southwest Sichuan) to northern Indochina (northwest Thailand, northern Vietnam and Laos).
Scarce and elusive in the Himalayas, very rare in China and only a few records in Indochina (one confirmed record from Laos and only two definite records in Thailand).
Taxonomy
Subspecies[1]
There are 2 subspecies:
- C. f. frontale:
- C. f. orientale:
Habitat
In dark and densely vegetated gulleys in bamboo and montane broadleaf evergreen forest.
Occurs from 1850 to 2200 m, locally up to 3000 m, in winter down to 800 m in northeast India.
Behaviour
Diet
No information. Presumably feeds on ground and low in vegetation and among bamboo on small insects.
Breeding
No information.
Movements
A sedentary species with some altitudinal movements in winter.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2015. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2015, with updates to August 2015. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Gill, F and D Donsker (Eds). 2016. IOC World Bird Names (version 6.3). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.
- Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved July 2016)
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Blue-fronted Robin. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 13 September 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Blue-fronted_Robin
