About Dicrurus aeneus Vieillot, 1817
This species of drongo is somewhat smaller than the black drongo, and has more pronounced metallic gloss that creates a spangled look on the head, neck, and breast. The lores have a velvety texture, and the ear coverts are duller in color. The tail is slender and deeply forked, with the outer tail feathers flaring slightly outward. Immature individuals have white-tipped axillaries. Young birds are duller and brownish, with less spangled patterning. The nominate subspecies occurs from India extending north to the northern part of the Malay Peninsula. Specimens collected from southern India are very similar in morphometrics to the malayensis subspecies from Burma, indicating that size variation may follow a clinal pattern. The Chinese subspecies kwangsiensis is currently treated as synonymous with the nominate subspecies aeneus. Subspecies malayensis ranges from Selangor southward into Sumatra and Borneo. Subspecies braunianus is found in the interior mountains of Taiwan. The bronzed drongo, Dicrurus aeneus, is distributed across the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats of India, the lower Himalayas from western Uttaranchal eastward into Indochina and Hainan, plus the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and northern Borneo. This species occurs exclusively in forested habitats, most commonly in moist broadleaved forest. Bronzed drongos are found either singly or in small groups of two to three individuals. They actively forage for insects under the forest canopy by making short aerial flights from perches, and often return to the same favored perches after foraging. They sometimes join mixed-species foraging flocks. Like many other drongo species, they are very skilled at mimicking the calls of many other bird species. Their breeding season runs from February to July. Females lay three or four pinkish to brownish eggs in a cup-shaped nest built in a tree. The eggs are darker in color at their broader end, and often bear cloudy spots. The nest is covered with cobwebs, which gives it a typically whitish appearance. Adult bronzed drongos measure 24 cm in total length. They are aggressive and fearless birds, and will attack much larger bird species if their nest or young are threatened.
