Finsch's Rufous Thrush (Neocossyphus finschi), also known as Finsch's Flycatcher-thrush, Finsch's Rusty Flycatcher, Finsch's Ant Thrush or Finsch's Rufous Ant Thrush, is a little-known 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:...

-like thrush

Thrush (bird)

The thrushes, family Turdidae, are a group of passerine birds that occur worldwide.-Characteristics:Thrushes are plump, soft-plumaged, small to medium-sized birds, inhabiting wooded areas, and often feed on the ground or eat small fruit. The smallest thrush may be the Forest Rock-thrush, at and...

 of West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

n forests. It is often considered a subspecies of Fraser's Rufous Thrush.

Range and habitat

This species lives at low levels in the thickest parts of forests, often near stream or damp areas or in wooded swamps, from sea level to 1500 meters (about 5,000 ft), in the southern parts of Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

, Liberia

Liberia

Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...

, Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

, Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

, and Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

. (A record from southern Togo

Togo

Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...

 may represent a small population there.) It is sedentary.

It is rare in many areas, but common in some.

Description

Finsch's Flycatcher-thrushes are 18 to 20 cm (7¼ to 8 inches) long. Adults are brown above and orangish below, more gray or olive on the nape and breast and more rufous at the rear of the body. The tail is dark brown with white corners. The cheeks and throat are pale with gray and orange tints. Immatures are undescribed.

The voice is similar to that of the Rufous Flycatcher-thrush. In Liberia it sings from May to October. The song is four melodious whistles, "hooee, hooee hooee-huEE, slower and lower-pitched than song of Rufous Flycatcher Thrush". One call is four rapidly repeated notes, "tswe-tswe-tswe-tswe" with the variant "tsw-tsee… tsweeeee"; another is "a long, plaintive whistle wee… weeeee-eee." In alarm caused by predators it gives a "buzzing word-word-word." Unlike the Rufous Flycatcher-thrush, this species responds to recordings of its call.

Behavior

Finsch's Flycatcher-thrush usually occurs alone or in pairs. During the breeding season it is highly territorial, but at other times it may join mixed-species flocks

Mixed-species feeding flock

A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species, that join each other and move together while foraging...

 at ant swarms

Army ant

The name army ant is applied to over 200 ant species, in different lineages, due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", in which huge numbers of ants forage simultaneously over a certain area, attacking prey en masse.Another shared feature is that, unlike most ant...

. However, it relies much less on ant swarms than two of its fellow members of the genus Neocossyphus, the White-tailed

White-tailed Ant-thrush

The White-tailed Rufous Thrush , also known as the White-tailed Ant-thrush, is a species of bird in the Turdidae family. It is found in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya,...

 and Red-tailed Ant-thrush

Red-tailed Ant-thrush

The Red-tailed Rufous Thrush , also known as the Red-tailed Ant-thrush, is a species of bird in the Turdidae family. It is found in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda...

es. Instead it catches insects in its beak like a flycatcher, hawking from perches or taking them from under leaves while it hovers. Favored insects include termites, grasshoppers, ants, beetles, flies, and various small species. It may sit for a long time without moving on a horizontal perch. It often flicks its outer rectrices

Flight feather

Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges while those on the tail are called rectrices . Their primary function is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift, thereby...

 to the side "in scissor-like fashion".

In Nigeria, a bird was seen in March collecting nesting material at the base of an epiphyte

Epiphyte

An epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...

. In Liberia, birds have been observed in breeding condition from June to December and independent young in September. Little else is known about this species' reproduction.

Taxonomy

Some authorities lump

Lumpers and splitters

Lumping and splitting refers to a well-known problem in any discipline which has to place individual examples into rigorously defined categories. The lumper/splitter problem occurs when there is the need to create classifications and assign examples to them, for example schools of literature,...

 this species with Fraser's Rufous Thrush, partly because of observations of birds in southern Nigeria with plumage and songs between those of the two species. Here it is treated as a separate species following the Handbook of the Birds of the World

Handbook of the Birds of the World

The Handbook of the Birds of the World is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. The series is edited by Josep del Hoyo, Andrew Elliott, Jordi Sargatal and David A Christie.So far, 15...

and other authorities.

The specific epithet honors the explorer Otto Finsch

Otto Finsch

Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch was a German ethnographer, naturalist and colonial explorer.-Biography:...

. It is often spelled finschii, but the spelling with one i is correct.