J was sitting on the balcony watching this guy way out there in the tree. With the binoculars you could see his crest and the long dangly tail crisply. He even shimmered dark green. When I looked at the photo I was pretty sure that the black spot below the branch below the bird was the end of his tail. He flew away before I could check They have long strings with these little feather puffs way at the end. You can see it clearly on my favorite drongo picture which I extracted from a video I managed to catch of it flying near our balcony last year.
J was sitting on the balcony watching this guy way out there in the tree. With the binoculars you could see his crest and the long dangly tail crisply. He even shimmered dark green. When I looked at the photo I was pretty sure that the black spot below the branch below the bird was the end of his tail. He flew away before I could check They have long strings with these little feather puffs way at the end. You can see it clearly on my favorite drongo picture which I extracted from a video I managed to catch of it flying near our balcony last year.
What do these little feather tufts do for the bird, Steve? Are they like a decoy? (I can imagine chickdees surviving my cat, Mr. Razor Claws, if they had something that distracted him.)
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteWow! I decided to check your Blog today and see what's up - and there was the Drongo! Wonderful!
I have seen 3 different types of Drongos, but the Racket tails are the most spectacular! I think it's long tail is similar to the Black-billed magpie's. Seems it would take some aerodynamic adjustments to fly, that other birds don't have to worry about.
There are Motmots in Central and South Ameerican that have the rachet long tail and seem to be the analogous long-tailed bird there!
I am now goint to scroll down, because I saw something about a Striated Barbet!
Dianne