#81 Bird-o-soar 21 April 2021 Leucism in Black Drongo from West Bengal, India On 12 July 2020, while Partially leucistic Black birding in the agricultural Drongo Dicrurus macrocercus fields of Purulia, West from Purulia, West Bengal. © Bengal, India (23.19310N, Adarsha Mukherjee. 86.05390E), we spotted a partially leucistic Black Drongo Dicrurus macrocercus. It possessed distinct black coloration of the body with white feathers on its crown and a white beak. But the patch did not extend down to the body. It also had one white nail/talon on its right leg and some small white patches on its body. A closer examination of the bird in the photograph 28cm with a forked tail; it Guay, P.J., D.A. Potvin & R.W. Robinson (2012). Aberrations revealed that it was a commonly feed on insects in plumage coloration in birds. partially leucistic individual (Ali & Ripley 1987; Grimmett Australian Field Ornithology 29(1): 23–30. because the pigments et al. 1999). This is probably were only seen on the head the first instance of partially Swarup Fullonton1, portion and some parts of leucistic Black Drongo being Adarsha Mukherjee2, 3 the body and talon. reported from West Bengal, Aurobindo Samal & Supriya Samanta4 India. 1 Department of Zoology, OUAT, In the avifaunal world, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751003, India. References 2 Department of Computer Science, different types of colour Jagannath Kishore College, Purulia, aberrations are seen (Grouw Ali, S. & S.D. Ripley (1987). West Bengal 723101, India. Compact Handbook of the Birds of 3 Earth Crusaders Organisation 2006) and leucism is the India, Pakistan together with those of (ECO), Bhubaneswar, Odisha Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri 751019, India. most common type (Guay 4 Lanka. Oxford University Press, New Department of Zoology, Sidho- et al. 2012). Basically, Black Delhi. Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, West Bengal 723104, India. Drongo comes under the Grimmett, R., C. Inskipp & T. Inskipp (1999). Birds of the Indian Email: [email protected] family Dicruridae which Subcontinent. Christopher Helm (corresponding author). are small passerine birds Publishers, Oxford University Press, 480pp. Citation: Fullonton, S., A. Mukherjee, commonly resident to Grouw, H.V. (2006). Not every A. Samal & S. Samanta (2021). Leucism in Black Drongo from West tropical southern Asian parts, white bird is an albino: sense and nonsense about colour aberrations in Bengal, India. Bird-o-soar #81, In: with body measuring about birds. Dutch Birding 28: 79–89. Zoo’s Print 36(4): 16. Zoo’s Print Vol. 36 | No. 4 16.