Episode 282: Little Longtailed Birds
Sign up for our mailing list!\nThanks to Elaine for suggesting one of our long-tailed birds this week!\n\nHappy birthday to Jasper!! Have a great birthday!\n\nFurther reading:\n\nFossil of Ancient Long-Tailed Bird Found in China\n\nAll adult scissor-tailed flycatchers have long tails:\n\n \n\nThe long-tailed sylph male is the one with the long tail:\n\n\n\n\n\nThe long-tailed widowbird male has a long tail:\n\n\n\nThe long-tailed widowbird female has a short tail:\n\n\n\nThe pin-tailed whydah male has a long tail:\n\n\n\nA pin-tailed whydah baby (left) next to a common waxbill baby (right):\n\n\n\nKompsornis longicaudus had a really long tail:\n\n\n\nShow transcript:\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw. This week is a short episode all about little birds with really long tails. The tails are longer than the episode. Thanks to Elaine for suggesting one of the birds we talk about today!\nBut before we start learning about birds, we have a birthday shout-out! Happy birthday to Jasper, who has the best name and who will hopefully have the best birthday to go along with it!\nLet\u2019s start with Elaine\u2019s suggestion, the scissor-tailed flycatcher. I\u2019m embarrassed to admit that Elaine suggested this bird way back in 2020, so it\u2019s about time we talked about it.\nThe scissor-tailed flycatcher lives in south-central North America during the summer, especially Texas and Oklahoma, and migrates to parts of Mexico and Central America in winter. It\u2019s pale gray with black and white wings and tail, and salmon pink markings on its sides and under its wings. It also has a really long tail. It gets the name scissor-tail because its tail is so long and forked that it\u2019s sort of the shape of an open pair of scissors. The male\u2019s tail is typically longer than the female\u2019s, longer than the rest of its body. The bird is about the size of an average songbird, with a body length of about 5 inches, or 13 centimeters, but with a tail that can increase its overall length to over 14 inches, or 36 cm.\nThe scissor-tailed flycatcher prefers open areas like pastures and fields, where there\u2019s lots of space but some brush, trees, or fences nearby to perch in. It mostly eats insects, but it will also eat berries, especially in winter. It\u2019s related to kingbirds and pewees and will even hybridize with the western kingbird where their ranges overlap. Its long tail is partly for display, but mostly it helps the bird maneuver in midair as it chases insects, or hover in midair as it looks around for an insect to catch. It especially likes grasshoppers, and when it catches one, it will usually kill it before eating it by smashing it against a tree limb or other perch.\nAnother little bird with a long tail is\xa0the long-tailed sylph, which is a type of hummingbird! It lives on the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains in northwestern South America, mostly along forest edges, in gardens, grasslands, and other mostly open areas. It migrates to different parts of the mountains at different times of year to follow the flowering of its favorite plants. It\u2019s larger than many species of hummingbird even if you don\u2019t count the tail.\nIt eats nectar like other hummingbirds do, but also eats tiny insects and spiders. Its bill is black and not very long compared to most of its relations. Sometimes it will jab the tip of its bill straight through the base of a flower to get at the nectar, instead of inserting it into the flower like other hummingbirds do, and while it can hover, sometimes it perches to feed instead.\nBoth the male and female long-tailed sylph are a beautiful metallic blue and green in color, although the male is brighter and has purplish-brown wings. The female is about 4 inches long, or 10 cm, including her tail, and while the male is about the same size as the female, his tail is really long\u2014up to 4.5 inches long, or 12 cm. His tail is forked like the scissor-tailed flycatcher\u2019s, but unlike the flycatcher,