Some facts about the bird:
About 18cm long, the bird is a common breeding resident found in the southern half of the sub-continent. It gets its name from the distinctive shape of its tail, which is so often spread out into a fan. It is often confused with another similar looking species known as the White-Browed Fantail Flycatcher, which has a much wider range. Both are extremely active birds.
On my way to work today, I stopped by some mango trees to see if there was any bird activity. Sure enough, there was a White-Throated Fantail Flycatcher bubbling with enthusiasm on one of the smaller trees. It is one of the most active members of the bird family, and today was no exception. It's as though it were powered by Duracell batteries! That's right. It just goes on and on!
If you were to write an 'algorithm' for the bird's movements, you'd end up with something like this: 'hop-hop-swerve around-spread tail-swerve back-hop-.....'. This would go on forever and that too at a rapid pace!
Ofcourse, the bird can't keep up this energy level without food. Indeed, it feeds quite often on insects in a single day, and that fuels its engines. It's quite a sight to see this bird leave its perch to chase a fly or a moth, somtimes vertically, catch it in mid-air and return to its perch to devour the unfortunate victim.
I watched this bird for about 5 minutes, and in that time it seemed to traverse its own tree's branches and those of the next tree more than twice! It did show a kind of liking to be in an area for some time before moving on to some other tree.
Meanwhile there were some other birds around too. There was a Common Tailorbird, and probably a Common Iora too, whose bright yellow body was noticeable from a distance. I didn't have binocs with me, so I can't be certain about the Iora. But I've seen Common Ioras here twice before.
I had a bus to catch, and turned away. The Fantail was still merrily hopping about.
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