Not quite long, I was sitting at the garden in my church environment, just looking around and enjoying the view of the nature's beauty stretched out before me.
Then, my attention was drawn to a bird which flew pass and landed on the electric wire.
The bird has a unique feature - small body, black and white color, bright orange-red beak, and a tail that was so long — like 3 times its own body.
I've seen a couple of birds here but I don't think I've ever seen this one before. The way it perched on the wire with its long tail made a statement.
And you already know what followed. 😂
I positioned my phone and started taking shots.
After a while, the scene changed.
A couple of other smaller, brownish birds came to perch on the same wire. They were plain-looking, short tails, nothing like the first one. And immediately, the long-tailed one started acting up.
It began hovering around them, bouncing in the air, chasing them from one end of the wire to the other. It would fly close to one, and the small bird would just fly away. It would go to the other one, same thing. At first I thought, is this bird playing? Is it fighting? Or Is it chasing them away?
It was really an interesting sight. I just sat there and watched the whole drama play out. Sometimes you don't need to go far to see something beautiful. Just sit, look up, and pay attention.
Later I did a search and found out what I actually saw.
The long-tailed bird is the male Pin-tailed Whydah (Vidua macroura) in breeding plumage. In breeding season, the male grows that long black tail just to impress females.
And the other birds it was pursuing were the female Pin-tailed Whydah— or the young males that haven't grown the long tail yet.
And the chasing I saw? He was either pursuing the young males to mark his territory or trying to toast the females. And if that's the case, then that was courtship display. Hehehe. No wonder they were flying away — probably he was doing too much or they didn't find him attractive enough. Lol.
Nature sure knows how to crack someone up. Hehehe.
There's even more. Pin-tailed Whydahs are very common here in my region and all over sub-Saharan Africa. I wonder why I haven't noticed them before.
They like open areas, farms, gardens, and power lines like the one in the photo.
Interestingly, the male Pin-tailed Whydahs usually shed their long tail feathers after the breeding season, and then look more brown like the females or sparrow-like.
Now here's the kicker - the female Whydahs are well-known brood parasites — they do not build their own nests but instead lay eggs in the nests of other species like the waxbills (especially Common Waxbill), and the waxbills raise the chicks. Apparently, the females are just "chick making factory." Lol.
That's a wrap.
Have you ever seen the Pin-tailed Whydahs before?
Author's Photos
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