Northern Black Flycatcher

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{{Taxobox | color = pink | name = Northern Black Flycatcher | regnum = Animalia | phylum = Chordata | classis = Aves | ordo = Passeriformes | familia = Muscicapidae | genus = Melaenornis | species = M. edolioides | binomial = Melaenornis edolioides | binomial_authority = Swainson, 1837 }}

The Northern Black Flycatcher, Melaenornis edolioides, is a small passerine bird in the flycatcher family Muscicapidae.

This is an insectivorous species which is a resident breeder in tropical Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia and south to Zaire and Tanzania.

The Northern Black Flycatcher is found in moist wooded areas and cultivation. It nests in a hole, or reuses the old nest of another species, and lays two or three eggs. Breeding takes place in the wet season.

The Northern Black Flycatcher is 20cm long. It is a large upright long-tailed flycatcher. The adult is uniformly black. Juveniles are blackish-brown with buff scaling.

The long square-ended tail helps to distinguish this species from two other all-black insectivores, the Fork-tailed Drongo and the shorter-tailed and red-eyed Square-tailed Drongo.

This flycatcher has a simple musical song, and a thin tsee-whee call.

Reference

• Birds of The Gambia by Barlow, Wacher and Disley, ISBN 1-873403-32-1