Leaden You Know

One of our district’s summer migrants is the Leaden Flycatcher (Myiagra rubecula). Not very common in farmland, Leaden flycatchers like open woodland with lots of eucalypts but little understorey. I can count on finding them at Constitution Hill in Yea, or at the Old Cemetery and in some years they are common in Yea Wetlands. They come to these Southern climes in order to breed.

Leaden flycatchers have a ringing distinctive call – a loud pleasant towhee-towhee; plus like other flycatchers they also make a metallic buzzing and grinding noise.
If you follow the call and track one down, it will be sitting on a branch and it will shiver its tail as it calls, as if it is a great effort.

There are two other possible flycatchers in the district – the Restless Flycatcher (with completely white throat and belly) and the Satin flycatcher which looks very similar to the Leaden but is confined to the tall damp forests of places like Toolangi or King Lake. The names denote the supposed difference in the brightness of the black coloration -Satin being shiny and Leaden being dull.

It might have a more leaden colour than its cousins, but the Leaden flycatcher, personally, I find lifts the leaden heart and quickens the leaden step with its cheery song, shivering tail and smart tuxedo.