Drongos - Zig-zag road, Palawan 31/5/2023 (1 Viewer)

[dwatsonbirder]

I obtained the following poor images of a pair of Drongo spp early morning on the zig-zag road.

They clearly aren't Palawan (Hair-crested) which must make them Sooty drongo, but I'm struggling to reconcile the long tailed, large headed and heavy billed appearance with that species.

As far as I am aware they're aren't any other options...

Thanks for any comments!

 

[Joe H]

Hi Daniel,

I do hate to see an ID request go unanswered - so while I’m no expert on Drongos (only seen them in Australia and Taiwan), I’ll give it a go.

My first impression looking at your pictures was easily a drongo. The bill didn’t look too big to cause me any concern. Ebird lists the Ashy/Sooty species as being on Palawan. But you are right the bill is on the large end of the spectrum. I cropped and lighted one of your pictures to compare with Ashy – some have smaller bills, some about the same as yours. On my computer, your bird also appears to have a reddish eye.

Based on your comment about the bill, I took a look at Crow-billed. It’s not listed as in your area by Ebird but the range map in my collage below shows it’s in that part of the world; Wikipedia says it is found in the Philippines. It might be worth trying to get some more pictures (if you are still there). It might be a vagrant.

Anyway, I hope this gives you some help trying to sort it out.



Joe

 

[dwatsonbirder]

Hi Joe,

Many thanks for your reply - I'm afraid that I'm not much use with photography and even worse with editing, however the edited image you kindly attached shows that the bird looks fine for Ashy (Sooty) drongo, it must have been a combination of a trick of the light and my impression in the field.
Thanks for sharing, and much appreciated!
Dan

 

[foresttwitcher]

For what it is worth Dan, it looks structurally OK for Sooty / Ashy from the illustrations in 'All the Birds of the World' and 'Collin - Birds of the World' - I've seen both Ashy & Hair-crested but too many years ago to remember properly...

 

[andyb39]

These birds look absolutely fine for Ashy (Sooty).