Saturday, May 10, 2025

Hair-Crested Drongo

I've got one photo of a hair-crested drongo near where we stayed at Diphlu Lodge next to Kaziranga NP in Assam, India. I believe my guide, Bablu, indentified it as such and I have it written in my notes I kept while with Bablue that day, but no one has confirmed the identification on iNaturalist. 

There are eleven subspecies and this appears to be the nominate subspecies, Dicrurus hottentottus hottentottus. It is found in peninsular India, the Himalayan foothills from Jammu and Kashmir, eastern Punjab and Himachal Pradesh east to Bangladesh and northeastern India (Arunachal Pradesh and southern Assam hills, northern, central and southern Myanmar, northern Thailand, southern China, Cambodia, southern Laos and southern Viet Nam. 
Range of the hair-crested drongo from Birds of the World. The grayish-blue is year-round and the orange is breeding.
It has long hair-like feathers springing from the forehead, extending over the hindcrown and upper back, black plumage, highly glossed metallic blue green, a noticeably pointed and down-curved bill and distinctive nearly-square-ended tail. 
Illustration of the subspecies hottentottus from Birds of the World. 
 
This has the large square-ended tail which looks very similar to a photo of one I've seen in a similar angled photo, a long down-curved bill, metallic blue-green on the side neck and upper chest and hair-like feathers springing from the forehead. 

1 comment:

  1. I love the name "hottentottus." Somehow it must derive from or be related to the "Hottentots," another name for the Khoikhoi tribe of Namibia and South Africa.

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