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Forktail
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Illustration of a spotted forktail (Enicurus maculatus), a small black and white bird with a long, deeply forked tail and white spots on its wings, standing on a mossy rock.
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Illustration of a spotted forktail (Enicurus maculatus), a small black and white bird with a long, deeply forked tail and white spots on its wings, standing on a mossy rock.
Spotted forktail (Enicurus maculatus).

Forktail

bird
Also known as: Enicurus
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Britannica Editors
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Forktail, any of seven species of birds of the Asian, chiefly Himalayan, genus Enicurus. Forktails usually are placed among the Old World flycatchers Muscicapidae (order Passeriformes). Forktails pick insects from stones along mountain streams and have loud whistling calls. Most are strikingly patterned in black and white and have deeply forked tails, which they sway up and down. Six of the species are long-tailed and about 28 cm (11 inches) in length; examples are the spotted forktail (E. maculatus) and the black-backed forktail (E. immaculatus), both ranging to Indochina. The little forktail (E. scouleri), ranging to Taiwan, has a shorter tail than the other species.