Black-backed Puffback (Dryoscopus cubla)
About the Black-backed Puffback
The black-backed puffback (Dryoscopus cubla) is a species of passerine bird in the family Malaconotidae. They are common to fairly common sedentary bushshrikes in various wooded habitats in Africa south of the equator. They restlessly move about singly, in pairs or family groups, and generally frequent tree canopies. Like others of its genus, the males puff out the loose rump and lower back feathers in display, to assume a remarkable ball-like appearance. They draw attention to themselves by their varied repertoire of whistling, clicking and rasping sounds. Their specific name cubla, originated with Francois Levaillant, who derived it from a native southern African name, where the "c" is an onomatopoeic click sound. None of the other five puffback species occur in southern Africa.
A real field recording of the Black-backed Puffback. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
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Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
2 recordings on this page · licensed CC BY ×1 · CC BY-SA ×1 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and elsewhere · xeno-canto lists 402 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- Northern PuffbackDryoscopus gambensisprofile
- Pink-footed PuffbackDryoscopus angolensisprofile
- Pringle's PuffbackDryoscopus pringliiprofile
- Red-eyed PuffbackDryoscopus senegalensisprofile
- Sabine's PuffbackDryoscopus sabiniprofile
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.