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Red-breasted Flycatchers are very small insectivore birds. Their plumage is dimorphic, i.e. males and females are different. Male Red-breasted Flycatchers have a lead-grey head with thin light-grey eye-rings and an orange-red chin and upper chest. The rest of the front (underparts) is off-white. From the nape of the neck down to the rump the upperparts, including the wing coverts, are grey-brown. Their fligh feathers are dark-grey with grey-brown edge lining. The uppertail is mostly black, while the undertail and the sides of the tail are white. The white side feathers of the tail show as a fan pattern when the tail is spread in flight. Females differ from males in that their head is the same grey-brown as the upperparts. Down the front they have a white chin (some may have a faint orange throat patch) and a light-buff chest that connects to equally coloured light-buff flanks. Otherwise the underparts are off-white. The rest of the plumage is the same as males'. When seen from behind, the two sexes can only be separated by the different shades of grey of the heads. Both sexes have dark irises and a dark-grey bill with a horn-coloured base to the lower mandible. The legs and feet are black. Juveniles resemble females, with more buff hues on their front and a buff wing bar created by the presence of buff tips on the greater wing coverts.

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 Red-breasted Flycatcher is available HERE .

Red-breasted Flycatchers are a strongly migratory species. Their overall distribution extends from eastern and north-eastern Europe in the West to roughly the Ural mountain range and north-western India in the East. They breed in the northern part of that range, most of the population overwintering on the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan and Afgahnistan. Anywhere in between (primarily Asia Minor, the Levant, Arabia) they occur on passage.

In Europe Red-breasted Flycatchers are most common eastward of the river Rhine. Their breeding range extends from about the Balkans and the Caucasus north-westward to encompass basically all of eastern Europe, up to the surrounds of the Baltic Sea, most of Finland and eastward into north-western Russia. Elsewhere, in particular along the North Sea and Atlantic coastal fringe from Denmark to Normandy, and along the East coast of the British Isles (including the associated islands to the North of Scotland), they are increasingly common on passage in autumn. There are also reports from the more southern coastal fringe of Europe, along the French and Iberian coastlines and into the northern Mediterranean.

Red-breasted Flycatchers breed in forest with dense undergrowth, often near water. While on passage, they prefer near-coastal surroundings with thickets and copses.

I. Chisnall reports spotting a Red-breasted Flycatcher in the mouth of the river Humber at Spurn, Yorkshire, England, in October 2024. All sighting and photographic information presented on this page has kindly been contributed by I. Chisnall.