Anand Pendharkar: Drongos, the neighbourhood police

Ashy Drango in Devrukh

All of last week has been mighty crazy, with me speaking at a forum which I would've never considered earlier, due to my strong disagreement with any religion. So, imagine my shock when I was invited to speak at an international seminar, where the primary focus was religion and the key theme was ‘The Teachings of Pope Francis on Ecology and the Care of Nature with its Parallels in Hinduism'. What changed my mind were two things: first the detailed agenda, which revealed that the post-lunch sessions contained scientific presentations related to nature and conservation.

Black Drango shot in Maleshwar, Ratnagiri

The second being the thought that this was an opportunity to engage with an audience, probably minimally exposed to contemporary and scientific opinions. So I agreed and presented a paper titled ‘Current Conservation Challenges and Role of Youth'.

On the day of the presentation, I decided to take an hour off to experience the break of day and let my fatigued eyes, mind and neck recuperate. I opened the sliding windows wide and chuckled when I observed the on-going shedding competition between the red- leaved vilayati badam and the yellow-leaved umbar (fig) trees. The umbar was winning both in speed and volume and suddenly a drongo flew past on the left of my limited horizon. In the 30 years of living in this house, I realised, for the first time, that I couldn't track and follow the bird in the sky, not due to dominating high-rises, but due to the dense canopy of trees around.

The unmistakable calls, a split tail and undulating flight were enough signs for me to identify it as the master mimic, black drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus). Drongos, also called kotwal in Marathi or policeman bird, are not strangers to my living room window, with an occasional bold one landing on my internet cable, barely four feet away. Black Drongos in the urban landscape typically announce the onset of cooler weather and the immigration of Ashy Drongos. The resident Black Drongos share Mumbai's forests of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park with the White-bellied, Bronzed, Greater Racket-tailed and occasional Hair-crested Drongos, till Ashy drongos arrive and displace them to urban greens.

With recent phylogenetic studies, Family Dicruridae which earlier included only Drongos (Subfamily Dicrurinae) has now been expanded to include closely related birds such as Australasian fantails, monarchs, and magpie-larks. All species of drongos have these peculiarities - they have fish-like split or elaborate tail feathers, are great mimics of other birds, animals and inanimate sounds; they attack much larger birds and animals, and form the core of mixed-species hunting flocks. Their habit of driving away and confusing larger predators with mimicry makes it a safe space for other passerine birds to nest, earning them the name policeman birds. I religiously vouch for these drongos as they police my neighbourhood and protect me from mosquitoes, flies and other disease-spreading pests.

Write to Anand at sproutsenvttrust@gmail.com