Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

I bring you another species of Drongo. I'm indebted to my friend Richter van Tonder for the photo I used to create this painting. This one is the Squaretailed Drongo, Dicrurus ludwigii, or Common Squaretailed Drongo. The genus name Dicrurus means 'forked tail', and the species name ludwigii commemorates German botanist Baron von Ludwig, who collected plants in South Africa in the mid-nineteenth Century. I refer you to my forktailed drongo entry for more about drongos in general. For now, just briefly: drongos are generally all-black birds (with a few exceptions) with prominently forked tails – the present species again being an exception. They are expert fliers, hunters of insects, sallying out from perches. Most drongos live in forested or well-wooded habitats. They are most diverse in the Asian tropics, extending to Australia, Africa and some of the colder parts of Asia such as Iran and Siberia. Drongos tend to have loud, harsh calls, some being able to mimic other birds.

Squaretailed drongos present some issues with classification. They are the smallest of the African drongos, occurring from South Africa to Senegal in West Africa, and Somalia in East Africa. Strangely, though they are forest and woodland birds, they're absent from large parts of the rainforests of Central Africa. For long, all of these drongos were considered to be the same species. Recent studies suggest that we are dealing here with at least three species, rather than one! Now, the north-central and north-western populations are classified as Sharpe's Drongo, and the Western Squaretailed Drongo, respectively. Just by looking at them, they're near impossible to tell apart.

In South Africa, squaretailed drongos are far less often seen than their forktailed cousins. They occur in much different habitat: instead of dry savannahs and open woodlands, they live in lush forests and dense woodlands. They are much less conspicuous, usually sitting on a perch within or beneath the forest canopy, often adjacent to a clearing. From there, they spy out their environs with a keen eye, for flying insects. They're given away, however, by their strident calls, which they utter frequently. If you spot one, you can examine it: it looks much like a forktailed drongo, but smaller and more compact, with a bright red eye and a tail not as deeply forked, although it is not really square as the name suggests. Squaretailed drongos often join parties of other bird species that methodically patrol the forest to feed. These parties make for efficient hunting, for insects that escape one bird can often be caught by another. The bold and outgoing drongos often lead these parties. They learn to imitate the calls of other kinds of birds, though there's no evidence yet of them using these calls to deceive others, as seems to be the case with the forktailed drongo.

Again these drongos are typical in their behaviour to predators. Having spotted a snake, a bird of prey, a mongoose or a cat or something like that, they will immediately start making noise. They will scream and attack the predator with dive-bombing swoops, sometimes hitting them on the head with their feet or beak. They do this even for predators much larger than themselves, which usually are irritated enough by this behaviour to retreat.

Not much is known about the breeding of this species. We do know that they make exquisite little cup nests from lichens, pieces of root, other fibrous plant bits, and bound together with spider webs. The nests are situated in a small fork or at the end of a branch or twig. The female lays two to three eggs. We do not know how long the incubation and fledging periods are.

Squaretailed drongos are numerous in their preferred habitat, but this habitat is small in extent. Less than a percent of South Africa is covered in natural forest. Fortunately, much of this habitat is now formally conserved, and so long as it is there, the drongos ought to be safe.

Willem

31.08.20 Front Page

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