- Dryoscopus cubla
Identification
Length 17-18cm; Weight 19-36g.
Eyes yellow, orange or red; bill black; legs and feet grey.
Size smaller than Fiscal Shrike; tail relatively short; mainly black-and-white.
Male: Above black; rump grayish white; no white eyebrow; wings black-and-white; below white; tail black. Named from the loose feathers on the male's rump and lower back.
Female: Similar to male, but less intensely black; white areas more buff or grayish white. She has a white supercilium where the male as an all black cap to below the eye.
Immature: Deep buff olive where adults white.
Distribution
Taxonomy
Subspecies[1]
Dryoscopus cubla has five subspecies:
- D. c. affinis:
- D. c. nairobiensis:
- D. c. hamatus:
- Southern Kenya to Mozambique, northern Angola and north-eastern South Africa
- D. c. okavangensis:
- Central-northern South Africa to Namibia, southern Angola, Botswana, Zambia
- D. c. cubla:
- Coastal south-eastern South Africa, extending inland to western eSwatini and adjacent Mpumalanga
Habitat
Woodland, thicket and forest.
Behaviour
Male's Display: The male puffs out the white rump feathers "to form a remarkable white ball, then bows, droops vibrating wings, and spreads tail. He makes short 'butterfly' flights with the puff expanded, and may drop vertically through the air with raised wings. Courting birds audibly click their wings" (Zimmerman et al. 1996).
Diet
The diet includes invertebrates, eaten on the wing.
Breeding
They nest in a tree or shrub and 2-3 cream eggs are laid.
References
- Clements, JF. 2009. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2009. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019.
- Sinclair I & Ryan P. 2003. Birds of Africa south of the Sahara. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0620207299
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Black-backed Puffback. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 3 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Black-backed_Puffback
External Links
GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1
