The European Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) is the contrast-rich little bird that loves nest boxes, the male black and white, the female grey-brown and white. It measures 12-13 cm in length, has a wingspan of about 21-24 cm and weighs 11-16 grams. The breeding male is strikingly patterned, black above and pure white below, with a large white wing patch and a small white spot on the forehead; colouring varies geographically, with southern males often sooty black and northern or older individuals more brownish-black. Females and juveniles are grey-brown above and white below, with a less distinct white wing band, and the tail is often flicked up and down as the bird perches upright on an exposed branch.
The song is short, clear and somewhat mechanical, a series of trilling and whistling notes often rendered as "tsi-tsi-tsi tsju-tsju" or "ki-ko, ki-ko", delivered energetically from a vantage perch; the alarm call is a short, sharp "bit" or "vit". Breeding throughout Sweden from Skåne to Lapland, absent only from the bare mountain tundra, it is one of the country's commonest forest birds, with a population running into several hundred thousand pairs, greatly favoured by the provision of nest boxes, which has made it one of the most studied birds in the world. It readily takes boxes with an entrance around 32 mm, as well as natural tree holes and old woodpecker holes, with the female building the nest of leaves, bark and grass and laying 6-7 pale blue-green eggs, incubated for about 13-15 days; chicks fledge after roughly 14-17 days. Diet is almost entirely insects, gleaned from leaves and twigs as often as caught in flight. A long-distance migrant wintering in tropical West Africa, it is entirely absent from Sweden outside the breeding season.
Read about this species in Swedish →