African dusky flycatcher, Muscicapa adusta (formerly, Alseonax adustus and Muscicapa minimus; protonym, Butalis adusta), Boie, 1828, often known as the (African) dusky Alseonax, as the dusky flycatcher, dusky-brown flycatcher, or as the little grey flycatcher, photographed at Ghion Hotel, Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia (Africa).

Image: Dan Logen, 10 February 2011 (with permission) [velociraptorize].

Nikon D300, 600 mm lens, ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/250 sec.

I encourage you to purchase images from the photographers who freely share their beautiful work with us.

Question: This Ethiopian mystery bird species is very challenging to identify, but I think its taxonomic family will be easy for you to identify: can you name it? This bird and its close relatives physically resemble a distantly related group of birds in the Americas that fill the same ecological niche and have similar behaviours. Can you name that group? Can you identify this species?

Response: This is an African dusky flycatcher, Muscicapa adusta, a member of the Muscicapidae family of (mostly) Old World flycatchers. This species is an arboreal insectivore that captures its spineless prey in flight. Most of its family members share this foraging behaviour.

The dusky flycatcher is usually found along forest edges and in wooded areas in the highlands. Even though some of my sources describe this "LBJ" (little brown job) as "dumpy in appearance", I think it's rather cute. I mean seriously: just look at how round and fluffy this bird is. Like a plush Christmas ornament.

This small bird reminds me of some of the tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) of North America. Although, unlike the tyrannids, the muscicapids have a more complex vocal apparatus, so they're are not classified as sub-oscines. Of course, one hopes they use their more intricate vocal apparatus to produce a correspondingly more complex song, but alas, their song is as plain as their plumage.

I wish I could share a video of this bird with you, but no human was suitably impressed with their cuteness to record them on video for posterity (or at least, for me to look!).

You are invited to review all of the daily mystery birds by going to their dedicated graphic index page.

If you have bird images, video or mp3 files that you'd like to share with a large and (mostly) appreciative international audience here at The Guardian, feel free to contact me to learn more.

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