59. Tropical Boubou Yet another black and white bird. In fact, though, this boubou has a very light pink wash on the breast. One striking thing about this bird is the variety of its calls and sounds: another is the beautifully clear and fluty character of many of those sounds – once you hear it and recognise it, it is hard to forget. Some of those vocalisations are ‘contact calls’, meant to keep the singer in touch with other birds of its type in the neighbourhood. Others may be intended to declare territorial rights and intimidate any possible rivals. Some sound like “course scolds”, as the book calls them. But this bird, like some others, also uses song as part of the rituals that cement the bonding between male and female. For quite a few of the boubou’s vocalisations are actually duets; which is to say that the male and female make the song together: singing not simultaneously, in chorus, but antiphonally. That’s to say, one bird calls, perhaps repeated perhaps three or four times, and suddenly the other (from a distance) gives a perfectly timed melodious response. Nothing expresses mutual commitment more charmingly. Birds of AFRICAMA House 123