African Paradise-Flycatcher

The African paradise-flycatcher (Terpsiphone viridis) is a slender, crested monarch flycatcher widespread across sub-Saharan Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The body is about 18 cm long and adults weigh only around 13–16 g, but mature males add extremely elongated central tail feathers that can extend another 10–18 cm.

Males typically have a glossy dark head with a bright blue eye-ring and bill, rufous-chestnut wings and upperparts and long tail streamers. Females are shorter-tailed, with a duller head and generally greyer underparts. In parts of the range males also occur in striking pale or white-backed forms, adding to the species’ unusually high plumage variation.

The African paradise-flycatcher varies strongly across its enormous range, and multiple subspecies are recognised within Terpsiphone viridis.

Some regional forms remain taxonomically uncertain. The eastern African T. v. suahelica, for example, is still treated as a subspecies, although its distinctiveness has led to suggestions that it may merit recognition as a separate species. This reflects continuing uncertainty over where species boundaries should be drawn among some geographically differentiated populations.

African paradise-flycatchers occupy many wooded habitats, from dry and moist woodland and wooded savanna to riverine forest, coastal forest, forest edge, plantations and mature gardens. They usually forage below the upper canopy, where branches provide hunting perches and open gaps allow rapid aerial pursuit.

The species tolerates a substantial amount of habitat modification as long as a well-developed tree and shrub layer remains. This helps explain its regular occurrence in wooded gardens and plantations as well as more natural forest and woodland.

The diet is dominated by insects and spiders. Flies, beetles, ants, moths, caterpillars and other arthropods are common food items.

African paradise-flycatchers make agile sallies from a perch, twisting through foliage or catching flying insects in open air, and also glean prey from leaves and branches. The long tail of the male is visually spectacular but does not prevent rapid manoeuvring among branches, and birds frequently return to the same or nearby perches between short hunting flights.

An unusual feeding association has been documented at the Mpala Research Centre in Laikipia, Kenya. During a dry period in March 2022, birds were repeatedly observed catching free-flying insects swarming around greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) and, on one occasion, a Cape bushbuck (Tragelaphus sylvaticus). Seven interactions were recorded in total.

The birds were not removing attached ticks or other ectoparasites from the antelopes, but taking insects flying around them. The behaviour appears to be an opportunistic and rare addition to the normal feeding repertoire rather than a regular dependence on large mammals.

Movement patterns vary markedly between populations. Many tropical populations are resident or make only local seasonal movements, while birds in much of southern Africa migrate within the continent. They arrive in southern breeding areas during the warmer months and move northwards after breeding.

The boundary between resident and migratory behaviour is not always sharp. In eastern South Africa, for example, some humid coastal populations remain throughout the year while populations only a relatively short distance away occur only seasonally. The species therefore includes both resident and migratory populations across its range.

Breeding timing varies geographically and generally follows favourable warm and wet conditions. Pairs are territorial during breeding, and male courtship includes conspicuous use of the elongated tail streamers together with wing movements, postures and short display flights.

Both sexes build the tiny, neat cup nest, binding plant fibres, bark, grass and lichen together with spider silk and usually attaching it securely in a fork on a horizontal or sloping branch. Clutches normally contain 2–3 eggs. Both parents incubate, with incubation lasting about 13 days, and both feed the chicks. Young commonly leave the nest after roughly 11–14 days and remain dependent on the adults for some time afterwards.

A study published in 2025 found that laying dates in South Africa shifted about five days later over the five decades from 1950 to 1999. Changes in rainfall are one possible explanation, but the cause of the shift remains uncertain.

The African paradise-flycatcher is classified as least concern on the IUCN Red List. It has an enormous range, remains common in many suitable wooded habitats, and the global population trend is considered stable.

The species can use plantations and mature gardens as well as natural forest and woodland. Local habitat loss can reduce populations where tree and shrub cover is heavily removed, but no major threat is known across the species’ range.