I have never quite made up my mind how this beautiful bush-shrike’s name should be pronounced. I favour stressing the penultimate syllable with a long “…eeee…”, and fading away on the final note. Rather like the “Cock-a-doodle..” of “Cock-a-doodle doo”. The name is born of the song which can be written as Bok-bok makeer. Thank you to Charles Hesse and www.xeno-canto.org for the recording.
Try it for yourselves; Bokmakierie. And at last the family Malaconotidae will show up on a 10,000 Birds search.
The Malaconotidae are Bush-Shrikes, a family endemic to the continent of Africa and were split from the Laniidae Shrikes after it was shown that they were sufficiently different to warrant a new branch. Many of them are brightly coloured, particularly the Telephorus genus but can often be quite shy. The Bokmakierie, Telephorus zeylonus, is not a confiding bird, but is probably the boldest of his retiring genus.
This individual was seen during a recent visit to Walter Sisulu Botanic Gardens near Johannesburg, South Africa.
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One of these days I’ll actually get to see this bird, a desideratum for decades. Really enjoyed your introduction to the species.
Did you know that it has also been called the “whip-poor-will”?