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Black-winged Monarchs are small to medium-sized monarchs. They have a black frons, lores, throat patch and upper chest, giving the impression of a black face. The eyes are surrounded by light-grey eye-rings that connect to equally light-grey ear coverts. The rest of the head, the back, down to the rump, and the chest are also light-grey. The rest of the front (lower breast to undertail coverts) is rufous. The flight feathers and the tail are black. The eyes have dark-brown irises. The strong bill, the legs and the feet are all grey. Juveniles have a duller front, a lighter-grey back and no black facial mask yet.

Twitcher's tip

Black-winged Monarchs have a clearly bi-coloured, light-grey and black back, while the upperparts of Black-faced Monarchs are all-grey.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Black-winged Monarch is available HERE .

Black-winged Monarchs are a partly migratory species of which there are 4 extant races, with a total range spanning from West Papua via Guinea to far north-eastern Australia. Nominate race "frater" is present only in north-western New Guinea, while race "kunupi" is found in west-central New Guinea. Race "periophthalmicus" lives in central and south-eastern New Guinea. The fourth race, "canescens", populates islands along the Torres Straight and far north-eastern Australia.

In Australia only Black-winged Monarchs of race "canescens" exist. They populate only the eastern part of Cape York peninsula, to about Daintree NP, QLD, in the South.

Black-winged Monarchs are usually found in low to highland rainforest, often in the low and middle storey.

Race "canescens"