Swamp Boubou

The sexes are similar in appearance. They are large passerines that measure 23 to 25 cm in length. The upperparts are deep blue-black with a slight luster. The long, fluffy rump feathers have concealed white spots, giving the rump a pale appearance. The wings are black with white wing-stripes, and the underparts are pure white. The iris is dark brown, the bill and palate are black, and the legs and feet slate-blue. Juvenile birds have light dusky barring on the underside, and buffy-tipped and barred upperpart plumage. Immatures are duller than adults with buff-tipped wing-coverts and browner bills. Their larger size, more slender bill, immaculate white underparts, and vocals distinguish them from the tropical boubou where they locally occur together. In those locations the southern race behaves as good species, but somewhat less so with the northern races which are sometimes merged with L. major.

It is found in Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Its natural habitats are regenerating forest, moist to seasonally dry savannah thicket, coastal scrubland and mangroves, and ravine forests of the Angolan escarpment. In the south of its range it is confined to floodplain systems. Along these rivers and swamps they frequent dense, tangled riparian vegetation, edges of reedbeds, papyrus stands or clumps of water fig on islands.