He is always with us, though not always as noisy
as in the prime of the year--a cheerful, prying, frisky creature, always
going somewhere or doing something in a red-hot hurry, and always making
a song of it--a veritable babbler. His love-making is passionate and
impulsive, joyous almost to rowdyism.
BULLY, SWAGGERER, SWASHBUCKLER
The drongo shrike is another permanent resident; glossy black, with a
metallic shimmer on the shoulders, long-tailed, sharp of bill and
masterful. He has a scolding tongue, and if a hawk hovers over the
bloodwoods he tells without hesitation of the evil presence. He is the
bully of the wilderness of leaves, bouncing birds vastly his superior in
fighting weight and alertness of wing, and clattering his jurisdiction to
everything that flies. When the nest on the nethermost branch of the
Moreton Bay ash is packed with hungry brood, his industry is
exhilarating. Ordinarily he gets all the food he wants by merely a
superficial inspection; but with a family to provide for, he is compelled
to fly around, shrewdly examining every likely looking locality. Clinging
to the bark of the bloodwood, with tail spread out fan-wise as additional
support, he searches every interstice, and ever and anon flies to the
Moreton Bay ash, and tears off the curling fragments of crisp bark which
afford concealment to the smaller beetles, grubs and spiders.
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