Has it ever happened to you that you are passing by a park or a field or a pasture and suddenly you see a silver light flying by or something shone and you did not know what it was, or suddenly you saw something shiny going straight up into the air and coming down swirling and looking beautiful? Most likely you saw an ashy drongo in flight or in one of its sallies.
The ashy drongo is a beautiful bird of around 15-20cm in length. As the name suggests, it is ashy or greyish in colour on the upper parts and with slightly lighter underparts which becomes paler around the belly. Its most attractive feature for me are its bright red eyes and the forked tail which makes it look elegant and quite outstanding. The reddish-brown eyes offer such a perfect contrast to the full grey, almost making the eyes stand out so prominently -- it's hard to forget them. The ashy drongo (Dicrurus leucophaeus) is a species of bird in the drongo family Dicruridae.
A magnificent flier, the ashy drongo is an agile and highly mobile bird, executing remarkable twists and turns in the air with extreme skill and speed. There are many different subspecies of the drongo, each differing in their distribution and the grey plumage. The ashy drongo is also exceedingly variable in its appearance. The iris of the adult ashy drongo is red to reddish-brown. The adult ashy drongo is mainly dark grey, and the tail is long and deeply forked. Some subspecies have white markings on the head. Young birds are dull brownish grey. The iris is crimson and there is no white rictal spot.
The ashy drongo has short legs and sits very upright while perched prominently, often high on a tree. It is insectivorous and forages by making aerial sallies, but sometimes gleans from tree trunks. They are found singly, in pairs or small groups. During migration they fly in small flocks.
A sally is a flight of a bird to catch its prey mid-air. Once the drongo spots potential prey, it flies swiftly from its perch to catch the prey and return to the same perch or sometimes to a different perch. This behaviour is also known as hawking. Bigger prey are brought back to the perch before being eaten while smaller prey are eaten mid-air. Sometimes the prey will attempt to escape and this can result in a fluttering pursuit before returning to the perch.
Drongos can imitate the calls of other birds and are capable of imitating the whistling notes of the common iora.
The breeding season is May to June with a clutch of three or four reddish or brown eggs laid in a loose cup nest in a tree. This bird is not endangered.
The accompanying pictures showing a very proud Ashy Drongo perched upright atop a dead branch. In another picture you can see it devouring a small caterpillar which it found on the bark of a tree. While this amateur photographer has not been able to capture any pictures of the sallies, the memory of having seen a few remains fresh and desiring for more from this elegant, red-eyed, fork-tailed bird.
photos: apurva manek
