My name is Maria Capra

 

An interview with Maria Capra

(a.k.a the pied fantail, a.k.a Rhipudira Javanica)

Hello,

Tweet tweet

My name is Maria Capra.

I am a pretty black and white bird. What? You say monochrome is out and colour is in? How dare you! TWEET! I will bite you, for I am known to be territorial and aggressive. So beware, watch your tongue!

Maria Capra (Pied Fantail) with Senor Capra.
Photo by Adri Constantino. Doodling by The City Warbler

Through the ages, I have fought with beasts and giants of all kinds - cats, dogs, even that big menace people call homo erectus or human being! I have even fought with my own reflection!

Ah - yes, it is ok. I can hear your apologies. That is better.

My food....

Well, you can make me happy by inviting me for lunch. I love insects - especially the flying winged variety (Mmmm.... their winds are so crunchy!) - But do remember, I like them fresh. (Yes - I follow Confucious in that matter). If you look close, my bill is ringed with spines (rictal bristles) which help me catch insects, even in dim light. Now, my mother (her name is nature) is smart, is she not?

Pied fantails like to eat winged insects
It has been suggested that by revealing the white tips of the tail, insects are startled into movement 

Is it true that you are among the Top Ten Most Common Urban Birds?

Yes - I received that distinction, along with my friends, including the Eurasian tree sparrow (who many urban idiots mistakenly call the Maya bird - the Maya bird is actually the Chestnut Munia seen so commonly in rice fields even today), the Yellow Vented Bul Bul (yeah - she has a wonderful tinkling gurgling voice) and the Olive Backed Sun Bird.

Can you tell us more about your name ?

Why am I called the pied fantail? Well, pied means "black and white"- which are my colours. Fantail of course is due to my tail, which I spread out like a fan or a Spanish abanico, and move it up and down, especially when I am dancing or hopping about. My broad tail helps me change direction quickly when I am hunting for insects. You see, I like to startle them with my movements, they move, they reveal themselves, I catch them quickly, I reveal my hunger, I revel in  the delight of "fresh catch of the day".

In Tagalog (or rather, Pilipino, to be more politically correct), I am called Sipao, and when I fly around in the Visayan islands, the kids point at me and shout Tarerekoy Tarerekoy! But some people seem confused, as I have also heard people call the bushchat "Maria Cafra". Idiots! Don't they know that we are not even of the same family - let alone species?

Why am I called Maria Capra?

Ah - that is my romanticized name in The Philippines. (Though some people also call me Maria Cafra - due to the habitually intermixed "fa" and "pa" sounds - a hangover of the Spanish colonial era and the mass hispanisation that people indulged in - then and ever since.)

But that still does not answer WHY?

Well - it is nice, it is attractive, it is beautiful, it sounds a lot like Maria Clara, but much stronger than her. You do know who  Maria Clara is, right? The heroine of Jose Rizal's novel Noli Me Tangere who Ibarra falls in love with ? Have you read it? Yes - she looked beautiful in the TV series, but sadly turned out to be a real faint hearted wimp in the novel.

Fantail eat winged insects.

You read?

Of course I do! Have you not heard the phrase "bird brained"?

Well that still does not answer why Maria Capra...

Gosh - you are one pesky person. Well - it is time for me to fly away..
Tweet Tweet - and see you tomorrow - at a garden close to you..

The fantail is known by different names in different places - but the ones I like most are Maria Capra (Philippines) and Muray Gila (Malay - literally means crazy thrush!)

Note :

Maria Capra / Cafra in contemporary times..

• Maria Cafra is the name of a 1970s Pinoy rock band (Here on Facebook and You tube )

References -

Much of the information used in this post is from the below references, to whom I am indebted. If not for them, I would not have been able to figure out any of the above No copyright violations are intended. All  information posted under Creative Commons License.

1. Syliva Ramos' Blog
2. Infosheet on Fantails by Department of conservation, NZ
3. The call and behavior of the Pied Fantail - Eating a dragon fly - Antics of the Pied Fantail - Bird Ecology study group
4. Birdwatch Philippines
5. Blog - When Maria Capra sat on his hand
6. The Bird Photo Catalogue
7. Joiz Tolero's blog which led me to Fisher and Hick's book on Birds  of The Philippines
8. Facebook - Wild birds of Aurora
9. Ten Most Common Urban Birds - Maria Tanedo
10. Habits of the Pied Fantail
11. Photo Blog - A short nesting story of a pied fantail
12. Pied fantail on the website of everything
13. A Guide to the Birds of the Philippines by Robert S. Kennedy et al

Maria Capra - Pied Fantail

As I looked at her,

she flew away,

her tail looking like a splatter

of black and white

- The City Warbler, 2013

That, in an amateur poetic way (with all due apologies to Wordsworth, who must have just turned in his grave) is the Pied Fantail for you. I spotted my first pair today morning - straight out of the blue. Or shall I say green? For after the recent rains, the Washington Sycip park was resplendent, with every possible shade of green.



Pied Fantail (Rhipidura nigritorquis) - also called Maria Capra (Image by Trinket Canlas - Birding Philippines)

Right there, a black bird flew out of the bushes, rapidly. Jumping here and there, like a restless child (or like many adults, you may say!). As it hopped around a bit on the grass, I could make out a tail which was different from any I have seen so far - like a peacock in a black and white movie!

I rushed back to my field guide.

Could it have been a Shrike? A Flycatcher? Perhaps a Magpie Robin? Nay - they all looked different from what I had seen... or could remember having seen!

Then I went back to refer to my bigger field guide - the baby of Vint Cerf - with some help from a certain Larry Page and Sergei Brin! Yes - you are right... A google image search made things a bit easier.  (Trivia : Interestingly the google spell check reminds me that google should be spelt with a capital G, thus Google. So the question that seeks to be asked is .. when did Google become a proper noun?)

A different key word here
A few distinguishing features...
Could adding the tail in the search terms help?
It was black and white, for sure.
Voila - that is it!

The Philippine Pied Fantail (Rhipidura Nigritorquis) - called so, due to tail which spreads out - fan like, is a common bird found in the tropics. However, it had taken me a long time to see a bird said to be common! It is found all over South East Asia - from Brunei and Indonesia (you would have never guessed by the Java in it's name. Ha ha!) right upto Thailand and Philippines.

Javanica or Nigritorquis?
For more than a month, I laboured under the misconception that I was seeing Rhipudura Javanica. It was after some more looking around (and most probably an accidental search result - you never know what was accidental on the net) that I realised that it really was the Philippine pied fan tail (Rhipidura nigritorquis) that I was watching the antics of! I have made appropriate corections in this psot thence, where ever it was possible.

The Pied Fantail is found all over South East Asia
 (Image from this really cool map on http://maps.iucnredlist.org 
Correction Sept 2013 - this bird was really nigritorquis - not javanica!)

The Pied fantail is not a rare bird. By conservation standards, it falls under LC - Least concern. Which is a cute way of saying that Mama Pied Fantail and Papa Pied Fantail are having a lot of fun, and have lots of kids to show it!

However, I like it's Colloquial Filipino name more -


Maria Capra.



Next - Interview with the Pied Fantail (aka Maria Capra)

References -

Much of the information used in this post is from the below references, to whom I am indebted. If not for them, I would not have been able to figure out any of the above No copyright violations are intended. All  information posted under Creative Commons License.

1. Pied Fantail - Wikipedia
2. Rhipidura Javanica - On the IUPN Red list (Birdlife International)
3. Birding Philippines on the Pied Fantail
4. Google
5. Wild bird club of Philippines