The flying rhythmic artists

The White Variety (shot taken on 13 April 2021)

There are two subspecies of the Indian paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi) in and around Windsong. I suddenly had a roufous coloured male with a streaming tail alight on my wisteria tree. Though he was against the light, I still managed to snap off a shot. However, sub-adults that later turn white only develop the tail in their second or third year. 

Intrigued, I dug up a shot taken in June 2020 of a nesting male that was white in colour but did not have the streaming tail. A call to a couple of friends confirmed that there are indeed two varieties, and to confuse matters even more, the females in both cases look identical. The roufous version seems to be more commonly found in my part of the Himalayas.

The paradise flycatcher is called ‘dudhraj’ in Hindi. Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the local names of birds, which I think is a great pity. In flight, the male looks like a flying gymnast with a streaming ribbon, and if I remember my childhood stories, there is a connection with Vishnu. I also remember a book by Ranjit Lal wherein he had the flycatcher way up in the hierarchy.

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