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Dicrurus hottentottus
Black like all drongos but has a spangly collar.
Village Kukrahati near Haldia, West Bengal, India. Rural residential area.
Wikipedia says, " The unsuccessful racehorse Drongo was named after the bird and led to the Australian slang insult "drongo" meaning "idiot". How rude!
Spotted on Mar 30, 2019
Submitted on Apr 2, 2019
7 Comments
That hair is so obvious in your other spotting, but not a sign of it in this one. Very observant of you to notice the eye colour. Those niggling feelings do come in handy sometimes :)
You can see the hair on its head in this earlier spotting of mine.
https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/14...
@ Neil...thanks for the correction. I had a niggling feeling because Spangled drongos have red eyes...this one did not. And I love the name hottentottus!
Ah, Dicrurus hottentottus is also commonly known as Spangled Drongo in India. My mistake, not the newspaper.
I think your spotting is the Asian cousin, the Hair-crested Drongo (Dicrurus hottentottus). It looks almost identical to the Spangled Drongo, but it's just the range that has made me to look further. The Australian species occurs as far north as PNG and Indonesia, but not as far north as India. Your second preference link (The Hindu) refers to the bird by two common names, but Spangled Drongo is not the local species. The species ID Dicrurus hottentottus is correct.
Thank you, Neil. It was low light and full zoom; not the happiest of combination. First time I saw this bird...about the slang use of Drongo...just read it on Wikipedia and was amused...for us in India the animal associated with the word Stupid/Idiot is gaddha = Donkey :) We use it ALL the time.
Lovely spotting, Sukanya. I've also seen this species in Brisbane. The colloquial term "drongo" is rarely used these day, with the exception of older Australians perhaps. Other universally understood words are used to call someone an idiot. I'll bet that most young Australians are unaware of the bird or the colloquial insult. Silly drongos ;)