Birds We See Around: Indian Drongo Or Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus)

· by · in Photography. ·

In today’s Birds We See Around series, let me introduce another quite common bird found even in the piles of concrete, the common Indian Drongo or Black Drongo. There are about 10 species of Drongos in India, of which, the Black and Ashy drongos are commonly seen.

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Caught in the Cage of Civilization

The striking feature of a drongo (called ‘finge’ ফিঙে in Bengali) is the forked tail which looks very similar to that of a fish. I discovered this particular bird perching high up on a power supply wire in front of my house. I won’t say it visits my garden like the sparrows or the black redstart for it never has come down to eat anything that we offer to the other birds as drongos mostly feed on insects which they like to hunt aerially. However, the bird comes regularly in the morning and, my guesswork says, it has its nest somewhere nearby.

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The drongos build nests generally on the higher branches of tall trees and lay four eggs at a time. They are famous for their aggressive beahaviour and often are seen attacking even larger birds of prey entering its territory. This has earned it an informal name, King-crow. Other smaller birds often like to be in the proximity of a perching drongo. Perhaps, they feel comparatively safer.

I’ve heard its call too; it’s somewhat sharp and distinct. I’ll add an audio if I succeed in recording it.

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My other regular avian visitors are doing well and, two more different birds have joined the crowd along with the existing ones. Even the Woodpecker couple pays us occasional visits. In the next part, I’ll showcase one of my newer guests. Till then, tweet, tweet! Chirp chirp!

74 responses to “Birds We See Around: Indian Drongo Or Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus)”

  1. Pingback: Evanescent: WordPress Photo Challenge | Scattered Thoughts·

  3. We guess we have been ignoring this bird all this while mistaking it for a crow! The tail looks so different than the other birds and color looks so gorgeous..

    Liked by 1 person

  10. The tail at the back reminded me a little of a swallow, but from the other angles, it looks quite different. I like the word “drongo.” I don’t know why. If I ever get a dog, I might call him Drongo.

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  11. Maniparna Sengupta Majumder: A Tribute
    This is how an average day of the creeper of the jewels unfolds
    Early morning: she looks at the sky: a Haiku is born
    Then she looks at sun rise: again Haiku
    Then A cursory glance at the surroundings: Spots a Drongo….post on the same
    When Drongo flies away she looks at the trees and ruminates: becomes a post
    After sipping coffee she goes for a walk: Looks at the withering leaves: a post is born
    Out of the confusion to tread the same beaten track, another post is born
    She steps into her so called small garden, looks at the yet to bloom buds: one more post
    She spots a red rose in full bloom” Pulls out the camera and a picture is born…but wait A haiku alongside her own picture is mandatory so they are always twins…A picture and Haiku ruminating about new hopes being born
    After surveying her garden for flowers and couple more birds, she steps out presumably to buy something….Demonetization in vogue so spots an ATM thru an app: moments later a review post is born
    Virtues of going cashless flows out as another post
    Way back visits some durga pooja pandals if it is that time of the year or spots a b school or two: another post is born
    And when she comes back home, joins in the celebration for sisters wedding…at the end of it….a share it all post…
    Then the shadow lengthens and another haiku on dawn or setting sun…
    She gets out of her routine and heads to Khandagiri caves, in the name of change, goes on a clicking spree….comes back compiles and publishes another travelogue! Routine as change!!
    She says she finds some breathing space from the above routine activities and finds time to go bird watching, gardening,haiku writing and photography!

    I did not know what to write as a comment for this post and came up with the above!!
    But Drango rhymes with Django as in Django Unchained!! And truly its Drango Unchained!!

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  17. Hey!!! Few days back I had been googling for these birds. I saw them multiple times flying over our terrace and my sister kept telling me they were crows! I noticed the forked tail and smaller sizes and told her they weren’t. She said, they were baby crows 😐

    Anyway, I did google & find out they were drongos. But here is more information! 😀 Thanks and please do catch their sounds. I am super curious now 🙂

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  23. I hope you can record her/his call Maniparna 🙂 Our Drongo’s are the spangled variety and they have the same forked tail – we also call the “Winky Dink” birds because that is what their call sounds a bit like 🙂 Thanks Mani – beautiful pics as usual and info 🙂

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