The Sunda Forktail is a species of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 in the Muscicapidae family. It is endemic to Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, where it is restricted to the islands of Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

 and Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...

. Its natural habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 is boulder strewn streams in tropical moist montane

Montane

In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...

 forest from 600-200 m. More rarely the species occurs closer to sea level. The species is common in Sumatra, but is rarer in Java, where the White-crowned Forktail

White-crowned Forktail

The White-crowned Forktail is a species of bird in the Muscicapidae family.It is found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam...

 is more common.
The Sunda Forktail is 16 cm (6.3 in) n length with a deeply forked tail. The male has a white breast, belly and rump, and black wings, and a dark grey back and head. There is a small white line between the eyes. The tail is black with white barring. The female is similar to the male but has a brown crown and nape. There are two subspecies described, the nominate race occurring on Java. The Sumatran subspecies, sumatranus, differs from the nominate in having more rufous brown on the female. The call of his species is a hard shrill "chee" or "hie-tie-tie"

The Sunda Forktail feeds on aquatic insects and their larvae, as well as snails. The nest

Bird nest

A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American Robin or Eurasian Blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the...

of this species is a large cup of woven mosses, grasses leaves and wood fibres. Two whitish with red spotting eggs are a laid.