Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
THE SONG BIRDS
THE FLYCATCHERS
Spotted Flycatcher
In the typical genus (Muscicapa) embracing upward of twenty species, the wing is long and pointed, the tail square, and the plumage mostly brownish streaked with blackish; the length is between four and a half and six inches. The Spotted Flycatcher (M. grisola) already mentioned is a common species throughout Europe generally, being one of the most abundant, tame, and confiding summer visitors to Great Britain, where it arrives about the middle of May. Each pair takes possession of a very circumscribed area in a garden, orchard, or the borders of a field or meadow, and, unobtrusive and quiet, may be seen sitting on some dead branch, wire, or fence post, now and again taking short flights after passing insects and returning to the same perch, and, says Mr. Hudson,”of all our birds he is the least attractive, in his pale, obscure plumage, as he sits silent and motionless, listless and depressed in appearance, showing neither alarm nor curiosity when regarded.”They soon begin nesting, placing the cup-shaped nest, which is composed of grass stems, moss, and rootlets and lined with hair, wool, and finer rootlets, in a vine growing against a wall, in a hole in a tree or wall, or sometimes in a bush. The four to five eggs are bluish white or pale green blotched and spotted with reddish brown. But a single brood is reared in a season, and usually by the middle of September they have all left for their winter home.
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