The\u00a0spotted flycatcher<\/b>\u00a0(Muscicapa striata<\/i>) is a small\u00a0passerine\u00a0bird in the\u00a0Old World flycatcher\u00a0family. It breeds in most of\u00a0Europe\u00a0and in the\u00a0Palearctic\u00a0to Siberia, and is\u00a0migratory, wintering in\u00a0Africa\u00a0and south western Asia. It is declining in parts of its range.<\/p>\n
This is an undistinguished looking bird with long wings and tail. The adults have grey-brown upperparts and whitish underparts, with a streaked crown and breast, giving rise to the bird’s common name. The legs are short and black, and the bill is black and has the broad but pointed shape typical of aerial insectivores. Juveniles are browner than adults and have spots on the upperparts.The spotted flycatcher is a small slim bird, around 14.5 cm (5.7 in) in length, with a weight of 14\u201320 g (0.49\u20130.71 oz).\u00a0The sexes are alike. Juveniles have ochre-buff spots above and scaly brown spots below.<\/p>\n
S<\/sup>potted flycatchers hunt from conspicuous perches, making\u00a0sallies\u00a0after passing flying insects, and often returning to the same perch. Their upright posture is characteristic.<\/sup><\/p>\n The flycatcher’s\u00a0call\u00a0is a thin, drawn out soft and high pitched\u00a0tssssseeeeeppppp<\/i>, slightly descending in pitch.<\/p>\n They are birds of deciduous woodlands, parks and gardens, with a preference for open areas amongst trees. They build an open nest in a suitable recess, often against a wall, and will readily adapt to an open-fronted nest box. 4-6 eggs are laid.<\/p>\n Most European birds cannot discriminate between their own eggs and those of other species. The exception to this are the hosts of the\u00a0common cuckoo, which have had to evolve this skill as a protection against that nest parasite. The spotted flycatcher shows excellent egg recognition, and it is likely that it was once a host of the cuckoo, but became so good at recognising the intruder’s eggs that it ceased to be victimised.<\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The\u00a0spotted flycatcher\u00a0(Muscicapa striata) is a small\u00a0passerine\u00a0bird in the\u00a0Old World flycatcher\u00a0family. It breeds in most of\u00a0Europe\u00a0and in the\u00a0Palearctic\u00a0to Siberia, and is\u00a0migratory, wintering in\u00a0Africa\u00a0and south western Asia. It is declining in parts of its range. This is an undistinguished looking bird with long wings and tail. The adults have grey-brown upperparts and whitish underparts, with a streaked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":4392,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143,48,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-143","category-bird-species","category-migrant-arrivals"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7280,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions\/7280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}