page_title: Common tailorbird
section_title: In culture
hierarchical_section_title: Common tailorbird / In culture
caption_attribution_description: Orthotomus longicaudus = Orthotomus sutorius longicaudus[1]
context_page_description: The common tailorbird is a songbird found across tropical Asia. Popular for its nest made of leaves "sewn" together and immortalized by Rudyard Kipling as Darzee in his Jungle Book, it is a common resident in urban gardens. Although shy birds that are usually hidden within vegetation, their loud calls are familiar and give away their presence. They are distinctive in having a long upright tail, greenish upper body plumage and rust coloured forehead and crown. This passerine bird is typically found in open farmland, scrub, forest edges and gardens. Tailorbirds get their name from the way their nest is constructed. The edges of a large leaf are pierced and sewn together with plant fibre or spider silk to make a cradle in which the actual nest is built.
context_section_description: "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", one of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book stories, includes a tailorbird couple, Darzee (which means "tailor" in Urdu) and his wife, as two of the key characters. Darzee's wife is said to have feigned injury, but this behaviour is unknown in this species. A classic book of children's folk tales in Bengali by Upendrakishore Ray is titled "Tuntunir Boi", after the local name for the species, tuntuni.
caption: John Gould's engraving for Birds of Asia
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