Ashy Drongo

The ashy drongo is a mainly dark grey drongo with a long, deeply forked tail. Populations vary in their shade of grey and in whether they have white patches on the face, and young birds are dull brownish-grey. The Indian subspecies is very dark, almost like a black drongo, but slimmer, with a longer, less splayed tail, a dark grey underside without gloss, a crimson eye and no white spot at the gape. Its calls are more nasal and twangy than the black drongo's (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in the hills of tropical southern Asia, from eastern Afghanistan to southern China, the Ryukyu Islands of Japan and Indonesia, and many northern populations migrate. It prefers taller forest than the black drongo. SoIB 2023 lists it as a migrant within India with a very large range, finds its trends stable, and rates it a Low conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).