Birdfinding.info ⇒ Common in many parts of its range despite widespread trapping for the cagebird trade. It can even be found in parks and woodland fragments around several major cities, including Bangkok, Singapore, and Taipei. In Hawaii, it can be seen in the hills above Honolulu (Aiea Ridge, Tantalus Drive, Lyon Arboretum, and Kuli’ou’ou Valley), and throughout Kauai, including Koke’e and Haena State Parks, Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge, Wailua River Valley, and Poipu.
White-rumped Shama
Kittacincla malabarica
Family: Muscicapidae
Southern Asia to western Indonesia; introduced elsewhere.
Broadleaf forests and other mostly humid woodlands from India’s western coast and Himalayan foothills east across Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, and southern Yunnan to southern Guangxi and Hainan, then southward throughout Southeast Asia, including the Malay Peninsula to Borneo, Sumatra, and Java.
Introduced populations are established in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Hawaii: on Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, and spreading east onto Lanai and Maui.
Identification
A long-tailed, thrushlike chat with dark upperparts and a beacon-white rump patch. The bill is black and the legs are pink.
Adult male is distinctive: black overall with brick-orange lower breast and belly, white rump, and an extremely long tail that is black above and mostly white underneath.
The black upperparts often have a glossy bluish or violet sheen. The wings are largely black but some populations have rusty-brown on the inner webs of the flight feathers.
White-rumped Shama, male. (Ban Song Nok, Phetchaburi, Thailand; February 25, 2016.) © upupamartin
White-rumped Shama, male showing its black upperparts and white rump patch. (Ganeshgudi, Karnataka, India; May 24, 2012.) © Girish Prahalad
White-rumped Shama, male showing its black upperparts and white rump patch. (Cat Tien National Park, Lam Dong, Vietnam; March 8, 2016.) © Mohit Kumar Ghatak
White-rumped Shama, male showing its black upperparts and white rump patch. (Pakhal Lake, Warangal, Telangana, India; June 2, 2019.) © Sriram Reddy
White-rumped Shama, male. (Vansda National Park, Gujarat, India; May 11, 2017.) © Saswat Mishra
White-rumped Shama, male molting central tail feathers. (Ganeshgudi, Karnataka, India; December 5, 2013.) © Rajesh Shah
White-rumped Shama, male. (Hathikhira Tea Estate, Karimganj, Assam, India; February 17, 2019.) © Rejoice Gassah
White-rumped Shama, male. (Tan Phu, Dong Nai, Vietnam; February 16, 2020.) © Christoph Moning
White-rumped Shama, male. (Karimganj, Assam, India; July 8, 2020.) © Rejoice Gassah
White-rumped Shama, male showing its white rump patch. (Mavinkoppa, Dharwad, Karnataka, India; May 19, 2019.) © Hemanth Byatroy
White-rumped Shama, male with its tail up. (Ban Song Pe Nong, Phetchaburi, Thailand; March 12, 2019.) © Carlos Sanchez
White-rumped Shama, male with its tail fully cocked, and showing its brick-orange underparts. (Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh, India; March 26, 2018.) © Saurabh Agrawal
White-rumped Shama, male showing glossy bluish-black upperparts, with its white rump patch mostly concealed. (Ban Song Nok, Phetchaburi, Thailand; November 10, 2010.) © Alex Vargas
White-rumped Shama, male. (Singapore; January 11, 2007.) © Jonathan Cheah Weng Kwong
White-rumped Shama, male. (Hong Kong; February 17, 2020.) © Oscar Ho
White-rumped Shama, male. (Kaohsiung City, Taiwan; March 13, 2018.) © Liu JimFood
White-rumped Shama, male. (Garbhanga Reserve Forest, Guwahati, Assam, India; March 29, 2015.) © Raj Kamal Phukan
White-rumped Shama, male. (Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand; March 16, 2005.) © James Eaton
White-rumped Shama, male. (Uttara Kannada, Karnataka, India; March 7, 2019.) © adityadhiran
White-rumped Shama, male. (Wasgomuwa National Park, Sri Lanka; May 1, 2012.) © WMC Narampanawa
White-rumped Shama, male. (Ganeshgudi, Karnataka, India; March 10, 2015.) © Pranjal J. Saikia
Females and young males resemble adult males but have shorter tails and variably duller coloration overall.
White-rumped Shama, female. (Hong Kong; February 16, 2020.) © Oscar Ho
White-rumped Shama, female. (Guwahati, Assam, India; January 15, 2014.) © Raj Kamal Phukan
White-rumped Shama, female. (Hanakapiai Beach, Kauai, Hawaii; June 19, 2006.) © Nick Block
White-rumped Shama, female. (Song Phi Nong, Phetchaburi, Thailand; March 4, 2016.) © David Beadle
White-rumped Shama, female. (Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary, Balasore District, Odisha, India; March 15, 2014.) © Sumanta Pramanick
White-rumped Shama, female. (Tan Phu, Dong Nai, Vietnam; January 5, 2020.) © Felipe Ribeiro
White-rumped Shama, female showing mostly rust-brown wings. (Dosdewa Khasi, Karimganj, Assam, India; February 11, 2019.) © Rejoice Gassah
White-rumped Shama, young male or female. (Kaohsiung City, Taiwan; May 4, 2020.) © Liu JimFood
White-rumped Shama, young male with a very short tail and partly glossy upperparts. (Pulau Ubin, Singapore; August 9, 2018.) © Tan Kok Hui
White-rumped Shama, female or young male. (Hong Kong; February 16, 2020.) © Oscar Ho
White-rumped Shama, female. (Hong Kong; February 16, 2020.) © Oscar Ho
White-rumped Shama, female. (Gotheghar, Alibag Taluka, Raigad, Maharashtra, India; May 18, 2014.) © Tushar Bhagwat
White-rumped Shama, female. (Guwahati, Assam, India; November 24, 2013.) © Raj Kamal Phukan
White-rumped Shama, likely a young male, based in part on apparently all-black wings. (Aiea Ridge, Oahu, Hawaii; January 23, 2017.) © Mel Senac
White-rumped Shama, female perched on side-mirror. (Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand; April 9, 2016.) © budak
White-rumped Shama, female and juvenile. (Tân Phú, Dong Nai, Vietnam; June 14, 2020.) © José Eduardo Fontes
White-rumped Shama, juvenile. (Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand; July 26, 2011.) © Alex Vargas
White-rumped Shama, juvenile. (Princeville, Kauai, Hawaii; June 2, 2017.) © klabarbera
White-rumped Shama, juvenile. (Karimganj, Assam, India; August 7, 2012.) © Vijay Anand Ismavel
White-rumped Shama, juvenile. (Honolulu, Hawaii; June 15, 2017.) © Noah Frade
White-rumped Shama, juvenile. (Wang Nam Khiao, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand; June 21, 2020.) © Kanoktip Somsiri
White-rumped Shama, immature male. (Panti Forest, Johore, Malaysia; August 19, 2006.) © Mervin Quah
White-rumped Shama, juvenile. (Waialua, Oahu, Hawaii; June 8, 2017.) © Christina Burnham
White-rumped Shama, immature male. (Panti Forest, Johore, Malaysia; August 19, 2006.) © Mervin Quah
White-rumped Shama, juvenile. (Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand; July 26, 2011.) © Alex Vargas
White-rumped Shama, juvenile showing white rump patch. (Garbhanga Reserve Forest, Assam, India; August 2, 2016.) © Gaurav Talukdar
Voice. Song is variable, consisting of loud whistled phrases, often incorporating mimicry:
Udawalawe National Park, Monaragala, Sri Lanka, July 1, 1999, © Deepal Warakagoda
Chitwan National Park, Nepal, March 9, 2009, © Paul I. Holt
Calls include harsh scolding notes and growls.
Notes
Polytypic species consisting of eight recognized subspecies.
Generally regarded as including the Barusan Shama (melanura), which is a complex of four isolated forms confined to the West Sumatran Archipelago (melanura, hypolizus, and opisthochrus) and Sunda Strait (mirabilis), all either critically endangered or extinct—and which seem likely to be recognized as one or more separate species.
White-rumped and Barusan are traditionally considered conspecific with White-crowned Shama (stricklandii), but the differences between them are facially sufficient to regard them as separate species.
References
BirdLife International. 2017. Kittacincla malabarica (amended version of 2016 assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017: e.T103894856A111179027. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-1.RLTS.T103894856A111179027.en. (Accessed December 5, 2020.)
Brazil, M. 2009. Birds of East Asia. Princeton University Press.
Baveja, P. 2020. Barusan Shama: At the precipice of extinction. https://www.silentforest.eu/barusan-shama-at-the-precipice-of-extinction/
eBird. 2020. eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, N.Y. http://www.ebird.org. (Accessed December 5, 2020.)
Pratt, H.D., P.L. Bruner, and D.G. Berrett. 1987. A Field Guide to the Birds of Hawaii and the Tropical Pacific. Princeton University Press.
Pyle, R.L., and P. Pyle. 2017. The Birds of the Hawaiian Islands: Occurrence, History, Distribution, and Status. Version 2 (January 1, 2017). http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/birds/rlp-monograph/. B.P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Raine, H., and A.F. Raine. 2020. ABA Field Guide to the Birds of Hawai’i. Scott & Nix, Inc., New York.
Rheindt, F., P. Baveja, T.R. Ferasyl, A. Nurza, T.S. Rosa, Haminuddin, R. Ramadhan, and C.Y. Gwee. 2019. The extinction-in-progress in the wild of the Barusan Shama Copsychus (malabaricus) melanurus. Forktail 35:28-35.
Robson, C. 2002. Birds of Thailand. Princeton University Press.
Xeno-Canto. 2020. White-rumped Shama – Copsychus malabaricus. https://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Copsychus-malabaricus. (Accessed December 5, 2020.)