The brown-breasted flycatcher or Layard's flycatcher (''Muscicapa muttui'') is a small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the flycatcher family Muscicapidae. The species breeds in north eastern India, central and Southern China and northern Burma and Thailand, and migrates to southern India and Sri Lanka. It forages for insects below the forest canopy, often close to the forest floor.

Description

The brown-breasted flycatcher is 13–14 cm in length and weighs between 10-14 g. The overall colour of the upper parts is olive brown. Some of the feather shafts are darker. The upper tail coverts are brighter rufous as are the edges of the flight feathers. The tail feathers have rufous on the outer webs. The lores are pale and the eye ring is conspicuous. The chin and throat are white while the breast and sides of the body are pale brown. The middle of the body to the vent is buffy white. Submoustachial stripes are faint but mark the boundary of the pale chin while the legs and lower mandible are pale flesh coloured. The most similar species is the

Asian brown flycatcher The Asian brown flycatcher (''Muscicapa dauurica'') is a small passerine bird in the flycatcher family Muscicapidae. The word ''Muscicapa'' comes from the Latin ''musca'', a fly and ''capere'', to catch. The specific ''dauurica'' refers to Dau ...

, which has black rather than pale legs. It was named by Layard after Muttu, his servant who brought him the specimen. Although no ringing evidence exists to prove their migration, it is thought that the winter migrants in southern India and Sri Lanka come from north-east India and northern Thailand. A subspecies ''stötzneri'' (incorrectly spelt as ' by E C Stuart Baker) described from Szechwan by Hugo Weigold in 1922 appears to fall within the range of visible geographic variations and is not usually recognized. The usual call is very faint ' audible only at close range or a series of notes ' ending with a low '.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1306172 brown-breasted flycatcher Birds of China Birds of Myanmar Birds of Northeast India Birds of Yunnan brown-breasted flycatcher Taxa named by Edgar Leopold Layard