The Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis),called Halsbandsflugsnappare in Skåne, is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family, one of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers.
It breeds in southeast Europe(isolated populations are present in the islands of Gotland and Öland in the Baltic Sea, Sweden)and southwest Asia and is migratory, wintering in sub Sahara Africa. It is a rare vagrant in western Europe.
Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.netis one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there
Description This is a 12-13.5 cm long bird. The breeding male is mainly black above and white below, with a white collar, large white wing patch, black tail (although some males have white tail sides) and a large white forehead patch. It has a pale rump.
The bill is black and has the broad but pointed shape typical of aerial insectivores. As well as taking insects in flight, this species hunts caterpillars amongst the oak foliage, and will take berries.
Non-breeding males, females and juveniles have the black replaced by a pale brown, and may be very difficult to distinguish from other Ficedula flycatchers, particularly the European pied flycatcher and the semicollared flycatcher, with which this species hybridizes to a limited extent.
They are birds of deciduous woodlands, parks and gardens, with a preference for old trees with cavities in which it nests. They build an open nest in a tree hole, or man-made nest-boxes. Normally 5-7 eggs are laid.
The song is slow strained whistles, quite unlike the pied flycatcher. Pied flycatchers can mimic the song of the collared flycatcher in sympatric populations.
Listen to the Collared Flycatcher / Halsbandsflugsnappare
Recorded with my ZOOM H5 Handy Recorder. High Pass Filter applied with Audacity
Male Collared Flycatcher sitting outside the nest singing. When the wife give a call he gets in to the nest to remove poo and other garbage.
Male Collared Flycatcher singing
Öland, sweden - May 2019
The genus name is from Latin and refers to a small fig-eating bird (ficus, "fig") supposed to change into the blackcap in winter. The specific albicollis is from Latin albus, white, and collum, "neck".
Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden
By Klaus Rassinger und Gerhard Cammerer, Museum Wiesbaden Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37244774
The collared flycatcher is used as a model species in both ecology and genetics and it was one of the first birds that had its full genome sequenced. Repeated spectrometric data taken from male Collared Flycatchers has revealed that plumage reflectance should be measured during courtship, the primary period of sexual signalling, with spectral traits declining over the breeding season.