White-crowned Forktail    Enicurus leschenaultia indicus

Etymology:

• Enicurus : Greek word henikos – singular;  ouros -tailed
• Leschenaulti : Named after French Ornithologist Jean Baptiste Louis Claude Théodore Leschenault de la Tour (1773–1826)
• Indicus: From India 

Vernacular Names: Naga: Naga: Inruidiba gadiba

Distribution in India:

• E.l.indicus : Eastern Himalayas (from Sikkim and northern West Bengal) eastwards to Assam

Description: Size of 25–28 cm; weight of 27–38 g. It is a long, deeply forked but evenly graduated tail with white tips, outer feathers are white. The nominate race has white crown, black from head to breast, black back, scapulars and shoulder, white wing patch, white lower back to rump and lower underparts; bill is black, legs are pinkish. Both the sexes are similar. The juvenile is as adult, but with brownish head and upperparts, buffy throat and breast streaks, brown-mottled belly and brown flanks.

Race indicus is found in India. It is like nominate, but bill is longer, outer rectrix is shorter

Habitat: It is found in fast-flowing rocky rivers, streams, brooks and rivulets through dense dark evergreen forest, even sometimes in dark ravines with virtually no water; .It is found at 300–1200 m in Himalayas.

Food habits: It eats Insects, including black beetles, water crickets, springtails and caterpillars. It forages in water, along water’s edge, on rocks and damp streambeds.

Breeding habits: They breed in Apr–Jun in Himalayas. The nest is a relatively large cup of loosely woven green moss, grasses, leaves and wood fibres, lined with leaf skeletons and leaf parts, placed on rock ledge, between boulders, among tree roots or in hollow under bush, always in damp spot and typically next to or close to running water. They lay a clutch of 2–5 eggs.