Spangled Drongo
Sounds & Calls

Spangled Drongos are noisy, conspicuous species and make a wide range of different sounds. Vocalisations include complex mechanical jangling songs, strident whistles, excited chattering calls, harsh grating sounds & mimicry. Pairs or small family groups of Spangled Drongos often chatter and sing together.

As you can hear from the audio recordings at the bottom of this page, songs & calls vary much throughout their range. A notable feature of the mimicry of this species is its tendency to mimic the calls of a local common species of Accipiter. For example in south-east Australia Spangled Drongos frequently mimic Brown Goshawk (Accipiter fasciatus). In the Wet Tropics of Australia they can more often be heard mimicking the calls of Grey Goshawk (Accipiter novaehollandiae). And in West Papua I have heard them on a number of occasions mimicking Variable Goshawk (Accipiter hiogaster). I’m not sure if any studies have been done resreaching this phenomena in Australasia, but it would be interesting to learn how mimicking the calls of predatory species is benefiting the birds in this region. In Africa, studies have found a similar species, the Fork-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus adsimilis) mimics the alarm calls of other species to scare competitors away from a food source.

The Spangled Drongo (Dicrurus bracteatus) is a medium-sized, glossy black bird found in Australia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines & parts of Indonesia. Spangled Drongos inhabit rainforests, woodlands, mangroves, parks & gardens. This species is generally more common in subtropical and tropical regions although in summer it can be found as far south as Victoria (there is even a vagrant Spangled Drongo record from Tasmania!).