The Narcissus Flycatcher (Ficedula narcissina) is a passerine

Passerine

A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...

 bird in the Old World flycatcher

Old World flycatcher

The Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae is a large family of small passerine birds mostly restricted to the Old World. These are mainly small arboreal insectivores, many of which, as the name implies, take their prey on the wing.-Characteristics:...

 family. It is native to east Asia, from Sakhalin

Sakhalin

Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...

 to the north, through Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 across through Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

, mainland China

Mainland China

Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...

, and Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, wintering in southeast Asia, including the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 and Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

. It is highly migratory

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

, and has been found as a vagrant from Australia in the south to Alaska in the north http://www.birdskorea.org/narcissustypes.asp.

Narcissus Flycatcher males are very distinctive in full breeding plumage, having a black crown and mantle, a bright orange throat with paler chest and underparts, an orange-yellow eyebrow, black wings with a white wing patch, an orange-yellow rump, and a black tail. Non-breeding males have varying levels of yellow. Females are completely dissimilar, with generally buff-brown coloration, with rusty-colored wings, and a two-toned eyering.

This species primarily feeds on insects, and lives in deciduous woodlands. Breeding males sing in repeated melodious whistles.

There are several subspecies, largely determined by plumage and range variations, at least of which has been split off as separate species.

• F. n. narcissina, the nominate race, found from Sakhalin south to the Philippines
• F. n. owstoni, a short-range migrant based in the Ryukyu Islands, breeding males have an olive-green crown and mantle instead of black
• F. (n.) elisae, increasingly separated as Chinese Flycatcher or Green-backed Flycatcher (Ficedula elisae, Weigold
  Hugo Weigold
  Max Hugo Weigold was a German zoologist and a pioneer bird bander who established the Heligoland Bird Observatory, one of the world’s first.Weigold was born in Dresden. He studied natural sciences and geography in Jena and Leipzig...
  
  , 1922), breeding endemic to northeast China, wintering south to Vietnam
  Vietnam
  Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
  
   and Malaysia, breeding males lack a bold supercilium, have an olive-green crown, and mantle instead of black, and lemon-yellow underparts

"F. beijingnica", proposed as a separate species called Beijing Flycatcher or Peking Flycatcher, is now considered by experts to be the first-summer male of F. (n.) elisae and thus no longer a valid taxon http://www.montereybay.com/creagrus/muscicapids.html.

The name of the bird is a reference to the yellow color of many varieties of the narcissus flower.

External links

• Unusual Narcissus Flycatcher in South Korea analysis in Birds Korea
• Narcissus Flycatcher in Avibase
• Narcissus Flycatcher song files