What do greater racket tailed drongo eat?
Like other drongos, these feed mainly on insects but also eat fruit and visit flowering trees for nectar. Having short legs, they sit upright and are often perched on high and exposed branches. They are aggressive and will sometimes mob larger birds especially when nesting. They are often active at dusk.
Is a drongo a real bird?
The drongos are a family, Dicruridae, of passerine birds of the Old World tropics. Drongos are mostly black or dark grey, short-legged birds, with an upright stance when perched. They have forked tails and some have elaborate tail decorations. They feed on insects which they catch in flight or on the ground.
What noise does a drongo bird make?
Spangled Drongos are noisy, conspicuous species and make a wide range of different sounds. Vocalisations include complex mechanical jangling songs, strident whistles, excited chattering calls, harsh grating sounds & mimicry. Pairs or small family groups of Spangled Drongos often chatter and sing together.
Where are drongo found?
The black drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus) is a small Asian passerine bird of the drongo family Dicruridae. It is a common resident breeder in much of tropical southern Asia from southwest Iran through India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka east to southern China and Indonesia and accidental visitor of Japan.
Is drongo a crow?
The crow-billed drongo (Dicrurus annectens) is a species of bird in the family Dicruridae. It is native to moist tropical forests of southeastern Asia where its range extends from India to the Philippines and Indonesia….
| Crow-billed drongo | |
|---|---|
| Family: | Dicruridae |
| Genus: | Dicrurus |
| Species: | D. annectens |
| Binomial name |
What is a drongo bird known for?
Drongos are excellent and maneuverable fliers, though not over long distances. They commonly feed by catching insects in flight, having discovered their prey from an exposed, aerial perch. Some species follow large mammals or monkeys, feeding on insects that are disturbed as these heavier animals move about.
What does a drongo bird look like?
The Spangled Drongo has glossy black plumage, with iridescent blue-green spots (spangles), a long forked tail and blood red eyes. Sexes are similar, but the female is slightly smaller. The Spangled Drongo is noisy and conspicuous, usually active, and frequently aggressive to other species.
What does a drongo bird do?
A drongo might, for instance, give two alarm calls of its own; if the target didn’t flee, the bird would then utter the alert of a different species—often the alarm of its target—a switch that usually sent the victim fleeing.
Are drongo birds native to Australia?
Spangled Drongos are found throughout northern and eastern Australia. Also found in New Guinea and eastern Indonesia. Closely related species occur through south-east Asia to India, China, and the Philippines and on some south-west Pacific islands.
Are Drongos corvids?
The presumed corvid relatives included currawongs, birds of paradise, whipbirds, quail-thrushes, whistlers, monarch flycatchers and drongos, shrikes, vireos, and vangas, but current research favors the theory that this grouping is partly artificial.
What are the Drongos famous for?
The greater racket-tailed drongo is also famous for its superb mimicry of the songs of other species of birds. Another well-known species is the king-crow (Dicrurus macrocercus) of India, so-named because of its aggressive dominance of any crows that venture too closely, and of other potential predators as well.
Where does the racket tailed drongo live in the wild?
They are placed along with other drongos in the family Dicruridae. They are conspicuous in the forest habitats often perching in the open and by attracting attention with a wide range of loud calls that include perfect imitations of many other birds.
When did Carl Linnaeus describe the greater racket tailed drongo?
When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the greater racket-tailed drongo. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Cuculus paradiseus and cited Brisson’s work.
What kind of bird has an elongated tail?
The greater racket-tailed drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus) is a medium-sized Asian bird which is distinctive in having elongated outer tail feathers with webbing restricted to the tips. They are placed along with other drongos in the family Dicruridae.
What kind of forest does a drongo live in?
This species is usually found in broadleaved forest. In most of its range in Asia, this is the largest of the drongo species and is readily identifiable by the distinctive tail rackets and the crest of curled feather that begin in front of the face above the beak and along the crown to varying extents according to the subspecies.