Long-tailed Ground-Roller

The long-tailed ground-roller is a plump, long-tailed bird of the spiny forest, 34–47cm long with a tail that can account for a large part of the length. The male has a sandy buff crown and dark brown, black-streaked upperparts, a white throat framed by black malar stripes and a black breastband, and a pale grey underside. Sky-blue feathers show on the wing-coverts and the outer tail. The female is smaller with a narrower chest band and shorter tail (Wikipedia, general species account).

It runs rather than flies, and feeds by watching and searching through leaf litter. It is silent for much of the year, so local people once believed it hibernated in burrows. Pairs defend a territory from October to February and dig a tunnel in sand ending in a chamber where the nest is built. The breeding call is a low hooting from a perch 2–6m up at dusk or at night, given with a pumping tail (Wikipedia).

Its habitat is a narrow strip of spiny forest near the coast of the south-west, much of which is not formally protected and is being lost to slash-and-burn farming, charcoal and logging. On this guide it is a target species of Ifaty and the Spiny Forest.