Cyornis tickelliae
Silhouette: L. Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
Tickell's blue flycatcher (Cyornis tickelliae) is a small passerine bird in the flycatcher family. This is an insectivorous species which breeds in tropical Asia, from the Indian subcontinent eastwards to Bangladesh and western Myanmar. The Indochinese blue flycatcher was formerly considered conspecific. They are blue on the upperparts and the throat and breast are rufous. They are found in dense scrub to forest habitats. The name commemorates the wife of the British ornithologist Samuel Tickell who collected in India and Burma.
Tickell's blue flycatcher is about 11–12 cm long. It sits upright and forages mainly in the overgrowth. The male's upper parts are bright blue, its throat and breast are red, and the rest of the underparts are white. The female is duller blue with a brighter blue brow, shoulder, rump, and tail. It hybridizes with the pale-chinned blue flycatcher (Cyornis poliogenys) in the Eastern Ghats of India and these hybrids have sometimes been treated as a subspecies vernayi. The juvenile is streaked and has a spotted mantle, scaly brown upperparts, head and breast, with just the wings and tail being blue.
They have sometimes been known to feed even... Wikipedia →
Song1:01
India · 2025
© Jairam Vijayan · XC1043297 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Call0:39
India · 2022
© Sathyan Meppayur · XC741607 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Song0:27
India · 2021
© [email protected] · XC825028 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Tickell's Blue Flycatcher sighting in Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] on a given day, based on 10 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 182nd most-seen of the 204 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Tickell's Blue Flycatcher in Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 4 and 7 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Tickell's Blue Flycatcher sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
26th of 26
Of the 26 cities where we can rate Tickell's Blue Flycatcher sightings, Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] ranks 26th at under 5%. The best odds are in Hyderabad (India, about 50%), Jabalpur (India, about 50%) and Mysuru (India, about 30%).
Same family: Muscicapidae
The closest relatives of the Tickell's Blue Flycatcher that you can see in Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] (family Muscicapidae, Old World Flycatchers, Robins, and Chats) are Oriental Magpie-Robin (about 60%), Asian Brown Flycatcher (about 10%) and Indian Robin (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Tickell's Blue Flycatcher is recorded against all the birds logged in Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] (10 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
