Plumbeous Water Redstart
Phoenicurus fuliginosus
A slate-blue redstart of the rushing streams.
Opens recordings on xeno-canto, the open bird-sound archive.
What the hills call it
Thirthira
/ thir·thi·raa /थिरथिरा
Plumbeous Water Redstart — A slate-blue redstart of the rushing streams.
Field notes
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Muscicapidae · Old World flycatchers
- Genus
- Phoenicurus
- Length
- 12–14 cm
- Weight
- 18–24 g
- At Kunja
- Resident — here all year round
- Conservation
- Least Concern
How to know it
The male is slaty blue-grey with a rufous-red tail he fans and bobs constantly; the female is grey with a white-based tail. A bird of rushing water.
What it eats
Insects, snatched from the water's edge, the rocks and the air above the stream.
Where & when to spot it
Along fast hill streams and rivers — on boulders in the current and the wet rocks at the edge — bobbing and fanning that red tail; look at Jageshwar.
Nesting & mating
A cup of moss and roots in a crevice or bank beside the water; three to five eggs.
In the lens
Plumbeous Water Redstart, photographed at Jageshwar
Photographs by Manohar Negi · mnegi.com — tap any photo to view it full
More to spot
PasseridaeHouse Sparrow
Passer domesticus
Kunja
MuscicapidaeBlue Whistling Thrush
Myophonus caeruleus
Kunja
SturnidaeCommon Myna
Acridotheres tristis
Kunja
HirundinidaeRed-rumped Swallow
Cecropis daurica
Kunja
PycnonotidaeHimalayan Bulbul
Pycnonotus leucogenys
Kunja
MegalaimidaeGreat Barbet
Psilopogon virens
Kunja