- Brachypteryx cruralis
Identification
13 cm
Male is dark blue with rather shiny iridescence in the right light, except that lores are black. It has a white supercilium that can be very obvious when it is displaying but is very often hidden.
Female is olive brown with greyish wash below. It has rusty on forehead, lores, chin and eye-ring, and rufous-buff on undertail, rusty on rump and tail.
Similar species
Chinese Shortwing is greyish blue in the male with grey lores, and different song. Females are rather similar.
Distribution
Eastern Himalayas to northern Myanmar and western China; winters to northern Indochina
Taxonomy
This is a monotypic species[1].
This species was recently split from White-browed Shortwing.
Habitat
Seems to prefer thick, humid undergrowth in a variety of highland forested areas for breeding (usually above 2000 m asl) but found in similar habitat in lower elevation outside of breeding season.
Behaviour
Feeds on smaller invertebrates especially insects.
Vocalisation
Recording by china guy, Sichuan, China, August 2011
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- del Hoyo, J., N. Collar, and D. A. Christie (2020). Himalayan Shortwing (Brachypteryx cruralis), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.whbsho4.01
- Alstrom et al. 2018 Taxonomy of the White-browed Shortwing (Brachypteryx montana) complex on mainland Asia and Taiwan. Avian Research
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Himalayan Shortwing. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Himalayan_Shortwing
