Paradise Flycatcher - Distribution, Habitat and Movements

Distribution, Habitat and Movements

The paradise flycatchers have the widest distribution of any of the monarch flycatchers, ranging across sub-Saharan Africa, southern and eastern Asia and down into Southeastern Asia. At the northern extreme of its range it reaches Korea and Afghanistan. The species also occurs on a number of islands, including those of Indonesia and the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as Madagascar, the Mascarenes and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and Sao Tome off Africa's Atlantic coast.

The paradise flycatchers inhabit a range of habitat types, from rainforest to montane forest, woodlands, savanna, mangroves, riparian forest, deciduous forests and bamboo groves, some species will also move into gardens and cultivated habitat.

Several species of paradise flycatcher are migratory. The Japanese Paradise Flycatcher is almost entirely migratory, breeding in Korea and Japan and wintering in the Philippines, Malaysia and Sumatra. It does however also occur in Taiwan, where the population is apparently resident. The Asian Paradise Flycatcher is migratory in the northern parts of its range, breeding as far north as Afghanistan, northern China and Korea, but all populations north of southern China move south during the winter. The movements of the other species are not fully understood, but most are thought to be resident. Several subspecies of the African Paradise Flycatcher are apparently intra-African migrants, but little is known about these movements.