Bird watching/ Birding on Sri Lanka / SAARC Region

The White-browed Fantail (Rhipidura aureola) is a small passerine bird belonging to the family Rhipiduridae.

Passerine bird

A passerine is any bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or — less accurately — as songbirds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by the arrangement of their toes (three pointing forward and one back) , which facilitates perching . With more than 110 families and some 5,100 identified species, Passeriformes is the largest order of birds and among the most diverse orders of terrestrial vertebrates.

The passerines contain several groups of brood parasites such as the viduas, cuckoo-finches, and the cowbirds. Most passerines are omnivorous, while the shrikes are carnivorous.

The terms “passerine” and “Passeriformes” are derived from Passer domesticus, the scientific name of the eponymous species (the House Sparrow) and ultimately from the Latin term passer, which refers to sparrows and similar small birds.

Perch

noun a thing on which a bird alights or roosts, typically a branch or a horizontal rod or bar in a birdcage.
• a place where someone or something rests or sits, especially one that is high or precarious: Marian looked down from her perch in a beech tree above the road.

verb [no OBJ., with ADVERBIAL OF PLACE] (of a bird) alight or rest on something: a herring gull perched on the rails for most of the crossing.

Distribution and habitat
The White-browed Fantail breeds across tropical regions of the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The species ranges from eastern Pakistan to southern Indochina. It is found in forest and other woodland.

Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net

www.oiseaux.net is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there

Description
The adult White-browed Fantail is about 18 cm long. It has dark brown upperparts, with white spots on the wings, and whitish underparts. The fan-shaped tail is edged in white, and the long white supercilia meet on the forehead. The throat and eyemask are blackish and border whitish moustachial stripes.

Behaviour and ecology
Three eggs are laid in a small cup nest in a tree. The White-browed Fantail is insectivorous, and often fans its tail as it moves through the undergrowth.

Listen to the White-browed Fantail

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia