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Ancestor: Blue Sparrow

Size: Around 16 cm beak to tail

Dietary Needs: Lunges at flying prey at great speed from a stationary position, often bursting out of shrubs after some nearby flying insect. Relies heavily on flying insects, but also eats non-flying invertebrates. Can use their beak to chip into rotting wood to reveal woodlice. Their diet is almost exclusively invertebrates but if pushed by desperation they will also eat carrion and very small vertebrates, even other birds.

Life Cycle: Living as a larger community makes them a stronger force against potential threats such as the weaving cat so the reproductive strategy of their ancestor strongly suits them. Females and males mate for life, but the male tolerates the help of other potential male suitors for his female. The male's heightened aggression is directed at potential predators, and only males who severely overstep (by attempting to mate with his mate). Males care for the young, but females do slightly more so. Thus the male puts their neck on the line more for the survival of his offspring and their mother. This means the female is likely to outlive the male, thus the backup males are useful for her to have around also.

The young need slightly longer than their ancestor to grow. It's more typical for a mating pair to have young twice in the year, a third attempt is not usually successful due to the approaching dry season. The chicks not only need time to physically grow but they have some mental growth also. It takes time to learn their particular hunting method and practice the technique.

Other: Has a small, streamlined bullet-shaped body and dart-like beak. This combined with their keen sight and ability to predict an insect's future position from it's current path, makes their hunts often successful. They even catch fast-flying, agile insects such as moths and bees with a high rate of success.

Their agility makes them difficult prey to catch. They use their agility to appear out of nowhere (from shrubs) to harass and swoop at predators in the area that are making them anxious. Done as a community this can be a very effective annoyance at driving a predator away.

Unlike bee-eating sparrows they lack stamina and have short wings so must use powered flight most of the time when flying. This makes them best suited for small bursts of speed or ambushing from inside a shrub, than for sustained continuous fly-chasing as in the bee-eating sparrow.