ID please. Female Palawan Blue Flycatcher

[Ramon Quisumbing]

Earlier today in the forest outside Coron, Busuanga, I saw this LIFER! ;D

Canon 1D Mark IV camera, 800 mm lens, remote trigger, tripod. F/5.6, ISO-1600, 1/160 second, manual exposure.

Bird Guide Erwin Edonga said it was a Palawan Flycatcher. However, when I checked the KG, it does not look like a Palawan Flycatcher but more like a Snowy-Browed Flycatcher - although the KG says the SBF is found in montane forest above 1000 meters, and I was less than 100 meters above sea level.

ID please. I have more photos if needed.

[Neon Rosell II]

Hi Ramon, you just forgot to put "Blue" in the middle of the name and it's a female.

Although there are several races of snowy-browed they generally looked the same, here is a reference photo of a snowy-browed:

[Ramon Quisumbing]

Many thanks for the ID, Neon. I had considered that this may be a female Palawan Blue Flycatcher, since I captured the male PBF in the same area 3 weeks ago and there are several similarities between the two. But I was misled by the color illustration of the female PBF in the KG, which shows the head as the same brown color as the back (although the detailed description in the KG says "brownish grey"). My bird's head is more bluish grey.

Similarly, the male PBF that I captured 3 weeks ago has much less rufous on the breast than depicted by the KG. See birdphotoph.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=photo&action=display&thread=8614

[steve pryor]

Hi Ramon,
Yes, Neon has it right. It is just a question of practising your eye. The Cyornis (this one) is a larger, stockier bird respect to the Ficedula (the Snowy-browed FC), and the wing tips are more acute and the tail is longer. Then, you examine the face markings closely. The female of the Ficedula does not have huge white lores (as seen here), it has lores that are large and non-concolorous with the surrounding area but the color is generally rusty. Further, the supercilium is different - small, linear and whitish in the male Ficedula while the female Ficedula has an eye-ring rather than a supercilium. Actually, the confusion species here rather than the Ficedula is more likely the co-ranging Cyornis rufigastra ( Mangrove Blue Flycatcher). However, this can be eliminated (comparing the females of the two species) because the rufigastra has more of a bluish component on the mantle, in the wings, and on the dorsal aspect of the tail, and the whitish component surrounding the eye-ring superiorly is not as conspicuous in the rufigastra as it is in the lemprieri (the Palawan Blue FC).

Very good photo by the way. One of the best I have seen of the female.

[Ramon Quisumbing]

Steve, thanks a lot for the detailed info. I could not compare the Palawan Blue FC to the Snowy-browed FC, because I have never seen the latter. I hope to do so in Mt. Banahaw someday.

If you want to see more photos of the female PBFC, I just updated my posting on the PBFC in "Wild Birds of the Phils." Thanks again.

[Ramon Quisumbing]

Steve, can you please take a look at my photos of the male PBFC and explain why there is so little orange rufous on the breast? Thanks.