The Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis) is a striking black-and-white summer visitor about 12–13 cm long, roughly the size of a European Robin. The breeding male is boldly patterned: an entirely black upperside contrasts with a chalk-white underside, a broad white collar encircles the neck, and a large white forehead patch sits above a clear white wing panel. The female is greyish-brown above with a weaker pattern and an indistinct or absent collar, and juveniles resemble her; the male's white collar is the surest mark separating it from the closely related European Pied Flycatcher.
The song is a thin, varied series of whistling and crackling phrases — roughly "si-si-si-sri-sri-trrr" — similar to the Pied Flycatcher's song but often perceived as more metallic, sung frequently from exposed branches in the crowns of deciduous trees through May and June, with a short, dry "witt" as the contact call. In Scandinavia the species breeds chiefly on the Baltic islands of Öland and Gotland, where old deciduous woodland and nest boxes are plentiful, with smaller numbers in eastern parts of central Sweden; the population there forms an isolated northwestern outpost of a range centred on eastern and southeastern Europe, and the birds winter in sub-Saharan Africa as long-distance migrants. It is a hole-nester, using natural cavities, old woodpecker holes or nest boxes; the male arrives before the female and defends a territory around suitable holes, the female lays 5–7 eggs incubated for about 13 days, and both parents feed the young, which fledge after 16–17 days. Where its range overlaps with the Pied Flycatcher, most notably on Öland and Gotland, the two species often compete for the same nest holes and can occasionally hybridise. The diet consists of insects caught in short sallying flights from a perch or gleaned directly from leaves and bark. The species is classified as Least Concern (LC).
Read about this species in Swedish →