Taiga Flycatcher

A small, dull grey-brown flycatcher of the mid-canopy that breeds across Siberian taiga and winters in South and Southeast Asia, with males showing a variable dark throat patch and both sexes a distinctive black tail with white outer feathers, flicked and fanned when perched. It hunts by sallying out from an exposed mid-height perch to snatch flying insects before returning to the same spot. Migration periods, when it turns up as a scarce but regular vagrant well outside its normal range, and its wintering grounds in forest edge and scrub are the best times to look.