Black Drongo Frontal View

In the last blog I had talked on the Drongo I was chasing. So here are the photos of that photo session where I was chasing these group of Black Drongo’s for a nice pose . It was cloudy, windy and rainy evening. The weather was nice for photography, but light was insufficient.

Cloud was causing variation in light. Trying to capture near black subject against white background was a challenge. I took my meter reading from a single point metering from the body of the Drongo. As we all know camera meters are stupid and they try to adjust the meter to expose to 18% grey. So my black bird would come as 18% grey(means over exposed). To compensate for that I had to under expose by 1.5 stops to get accurate exposure. Other option is to look for some thing which is neutral like green grass which when you convert to grey scale is close to 18% grey and take reading from there. There is also a possibility of sky getting blown out due to higher brightness. Fortunately cloud helped me here to soften that effect. Therefore when you see somebody dismissing a cloudy, overcast day as bad time for photography, you can instantly judge their level of understanding of lighting and photography .

Black Drongo on a Street Light fixture

Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus) is a very common breeding resident bird, found in open areas, wetlands and near cultivation. This is a glossy black bird with a long deeply forked tail. They are usually found in open forests and similar lightly wooded habitats from southwest Iran through India and Sri Lanka east to southern China and Indonesia.

These are aggressive and fearless birds, 28 cm in length, and will attack much larger species if their nest or young are threatened. There are also some cases of Drongos preying on small birds. They have also been on occasion seen feeding on dead fish.

Squabbling Black Drongos

The Black Drongo has short legs and sits very upright whilst perched prominently, like a shrike. The adult Black Drongo is mainly glossy blue-black, although the wings are duller. The tail is long and deeply forked, and there is a white spot in front of the eye. Young birds are dull dark brown.

It lays three or four eggs are laid in a light cup nest placed in a fork often on the bare outer branches of trees.

It eats insects and other small animals. It will attack much larger species if their nest or young are threatened. There are also some cases of Drongos preying on small birds. They have also been on occasion seen feeding on dead fish.

Black Drongo on a Street Light fixture

The Black Drongo has been introduced to some Pacific islands, where it has thrived and become abundant to the point of threatening and causing the extinction of native and endemic bird species there.

It is said that they imitate the call of the Shikra so as to put mynas to flight and then to steal prey. Similar behavior, using false alarm calls, has been noted in the Fork-tailed Drongo. There are some cases of the Black Drongo preying on small birds, reptiles, or maybe even bats.

Black Drongo Dorsal View

Being common, they have a wide range of local names. The older genus name of Buchanga was derived from the Hindi name of Bhujanga. Other local names include Thampal in Pakistan, Gohalo/Kolaho in Baluchistan, Kalkalachi in Sindhi, Kotwal (=policeman) in Hindi; Finga in Bengali; Phenchu in Assamese: Phenchu; Cheiroi in Manipuri; Kosita/ Kalo koshi in Gujarati; Ghosia in Marathi; Kajalapati in Oriya; Kari kuruvi (=charcoal bird), Erettai valan (=two tail) in Tamil; Passala poli gadu in Telugu; Kaaka tampuratti (=queen of crows) in Malayalam; Kari bhujanga in Kannada and Kauda in Sinhalese.

A superstition in central India is that cattle would lose their horn if a newly fledged bird alighted on it. It is held in reverence in parts of Punjab in the belief that it brought water to Husain ibn Ali, an Islamic prophet.

Blue Tiger Moth - Dysphania palmyra

Even though that evening was drizzling I was trying to photograph Black Drongos (Dicrurus macrocercus) which were busy catching insects during late evening. Light was fading but my new Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS lens was able to get many pictures albeit in slower speed. As I came back to my In-laws house I saw this day flying moth which flew and sat on the metal box outside their home.

Even though I was not able to reach the box which was sufficiently high I got my trusty rig of Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM on Canon EOS 5D mark II fitted with ExpoImaging Ray Flash Adapter on Canon Speedlite 580EXII Flash out to shoot this moth. The metal box where it was sitting was a rusty one. The biggest challenge was to reduce the reflection of the flash from the metal box. The ring flash adapter helped me by diffusing the light evenly to produce a pleasant lighting.

Blue Tiger Moth - Dysphania palmyra

This is a very common moth we see around here. It is also one of the few day flying moths as most moths fly in the dark hours of night. It is called by various names as Blue Tiger moth, Four O’clock Moth, Peacock Jewel moth. This Dysphania palmyra species of moth belongs to the Family Geometridae. The inch worm caterpillar which I posted a year back belong to the same family of moths.

Many Geometrids have slender abdomens and broad wings which are usually held flat with the hindwings visible. As such they appear rather butterfly-like but in most respects they are typical moths: the majority fly at night, they possess a frenulum to link the wings and the antennae of the males are often feathered. They tend to blend in to the background, often with intricate, wavy patterns on their wings. In some species, females have reduced wings and are flightless (e.g. winter moth and fall cankerworm).

Most are of moderate size, about 3 cm across but a range of sizes occur. They have distinctive paired tympanal organs at the base of the abdomen (lacking in flightless females).

Blue Tiger Moth - Dysphania palmyra

The name Geometer (earth-measurer) refers to the means of locomotion of the larvae or caterpillars, which lack most of the prolegs of other Lepidopteran caterpillars. Equipped with appendages at both ends of the body, a caterpillar will clasp with its front legs and draw up the hind end, then clasp with the hind end (prolegs) and reach out for a new front attachment – creating the impression that it is measuring its journey. The caterpillars are accordingly called loopers, spanworms, or inchworms. They tend to be green, grey, or brownish and hide from predators by fading into the background or resembling twigs. Some have humps or filaments (see Filament-bearer image). They are seldom hairy or gregarious. Typically they eat leaves. However, some eat lichen, flowers or pollen. Some, such as the Eupithecia, are even carnivorous.

Blue Tiger Moth - Dysphania palmyra

Black Potter Wasp

On that Sunday I was looking out for critters in my garden. I found this black bee like insect with deep bluish iridescent wings (similar to carpenter bee but far slimmer and smaller than them) on an Indian almond (Terminalia catappa) flowers. On a closer inspection it turned out to be a wasp than a bee.

Wasp or Bee?
You might be curious how to make out a bee from an wasp in the field. Here are few pointers.

Watch the insect exactly as you ogle at the opposite sex of human being. If you are attentive to the curve of its waist or the shape of its legs, you’d notice some key characteristics to help you identify it. Bees possess robust, stout and hairy bodies with flat rear legs. Wasps’ bodies are slender with a narrow waist connecting the thorax and abdomen. Wasps appear smooth and shiny and have slender legs shaped like cylinders.

Bees being pollinators, spending much of their lives visiting various plants and flowers to gather and distribute pollen. They also feed nectar and pollen to their developing young. Their hairy bodies and flat legs are ideal for holding on to the pollen as they carry it from one area to another. Wasps, however, are predators. While adults may occasionally feed on nectar or pollen, they feed insects, arthropods, flies and even caterpillars to their young. Their bodies are sleeker and more streamlined for hunting.

Black Potter Wasp

Most honeybee nests are manufactured using wax, but other bees make their homes in tree cavities, buildings or even holes in the ground. A wasp’s nest consists of one or more rounded combs made of a papery pulp. The wasp makes this pulp out of chewed-up fibers and its own saliva.

­It may be difficult to distinguish a bee or a wasp when it is stinging you. Both bees and wasps inject their venom with a stinger attached to their bodies. Wasps and most bees can pump the venom into your skin, remove the stinger and then fly away. The honeybee’s stinger, however, is barbed and it sticks in your flesh. When the honeybee tries to fly away, her stinger won’t budge. Instead, it rips from her body. Since the stinger is attached to the honeybee’s digestive system, she eventually dies from the trauma.

That wasp I found was sucking nectar out of the freshly blossomed Indian Almond flowers. I was using my Canon EOS 5D mark II with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM and Canon Speedlite 580EX II on a Rayflash ring flash adaptor. The wasp was flying at around 7-8 feet from the ground. I had extend my hands fully to get close to the wasp and use live view at the back of the camera to compose and capture the picture. After few of these shots i went and brought a stool to raise my height to reach for the wasp for a closer shot. Unfortunately by that time wasp had flown away.

I was unable to identify the wasp as it was not fitting into any description of what I knew. I posted the pictures on Insect India Forum on Yahoo Groups for identification help. My good friend Geetha Iyer helped me to narrow it down to Potter wasp family. It either belongs to family Rhynchium or family Crabornidae.

Black Potter Wasp

Many potter wasps can easily be recognized by their distinctive shape. They are generally long and thin, even more so than the Polistine (paper wasps). Many also have a generally long petiole (waist), linking the thorax and abdomen. This applies especially to members of genera such as Eumenes, Delta, Phimenes and several others. However, some species of lesser-known genera such as Abispa, Rhynchium, Allorhynchium, Odynerus and others display a less typical body shape more typical of Vespid wasps. Another thing to note about potter wasps is that when at rest, their wings are usually held at an angle, similar to the Vespid wasps, instead of folded over their backs at a very narrow or overlapping angle like other solitary wasps such as the Sphecids or Pompillids.

After few day of photographing I had another glimpse of the same wasp. It was leaving a freshly made nest nest in a bamboo chime (one of those Feng Shui bamboo chimes somebody gifted and hanging at our front porch, It had worked as nest for Bulbuls, Potter wasps, ensign Wasps ). Nest was exactly like other mud wasps. It was build using moist soft clay like Laterite stone powder. I did not see it building the nest, but saw the nest only after it was complete. It prooves that it is a type of Potter (mud) wasp. I was not able to see any emergence of the young ones from the nest nor any other visit from the parent wasp. So as of now its real identity remains a secret. If any of you can help me in identifying I would be grateful.