Africa Wild Bird Book

[Lisbeth]

787. White-bellied Sunbird Cinnyris talatala (Witpenssuikerbekkie)
Order: Passeriformes. Family: Nectariniidae

White-bellied Sunbird Cinnyris talatala.jpg (49.45 KiB) Viewed 1318 times

Description
11 cm; 7.5 g. As with other sunbirds the bill is long and decurved. The bill, legs and feet are black. The eye is dark brown.
Male is the only sunbird in the region to have a bottle-green head and breast and a white belly.
Ad male breeding: Head, neck, mantle, lesser and median wing coverts, back and rump iridescent green, reflecting bluish at some angles; upper tail coverts more blue-green. Tail dull blackish, with faint blue-green gloss; Chin and upper throat iridescent royal blue, merging into bright green lower throat and upper breast, bordered below by narrow band of iridescent purple and below that an uneven dull black band, broadening on sides of breast. Belly, flanks and undertail coverts usually whitish, but some males have yellow belly patch, or entire belly pale yellow or darker grey. Eyes dark brown. Legs and feet black.
The female is brownish grey above and greyish white below, with some indistinct streaks on the breast. The belly and flanks are off-white.
Juvenile resembles female with yellow wash to belly; gape orange-yellow.

Distribution
From Angola to southern Tanzania south to southern Africa, where it is common to locally abundant across northern Namibia, northern and south-eastern Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and north-eastern South Africa.



Habitat
Dry woodland and savanna; parks and gardens.

Diet
It mainly eats nectar supplemented with arthropods, often joining mixed-species foraging flocks in the day, along with other sunbirds at large sources of nectar. In the late afternoon it regularly hawks insects aerially and gleans invertebrates from foliage.

Breeding
Monogamous. The nest is built solely by the female in about 5-8 days, consisting of an untidy oval-shaped structure made of dry material such as grass and leaves, bound together with spider web. The outside is decorated with bits of leaves and bark, while the interior is thickly lined with plant down, sometimes along with feathers and wool. It is typically attached to the branches or thorns of a plant or a tree. Egg-laying season is from June-March, peaking from September-December. It lays 1-3 eggs, which are incubated solely by the female for 13-14 days. The chicks are brooded solely by the female but fed by both parents, leaving the nest after about 14-15 days, after which they continue to roost at the nest for about 4-14 more days.
Parasitised by Klaas's Cuckoo.

Call
A highly vocal bird, calling much of the time that they are active. The most characteristic call consists of 1-7 strident notes: chewy-chewy-chewy. Also utters loud chak-chak-chak alarm notes. Listen to Bird Call.

Status
Common and widespread resident; locally nomadic.

[Lisbeth]

787. White-bellied Sunbird Cinnyris talatala

© Lowveldboy
Male

© Pumbaa
Male

© Flutterby
Male

© steamtrainfan
Male

© Sharifa
Female

Links:
Sabap2: http://sabap2.adu.org.za/spp_summary.ph ... &section=3
Species Text Sabap1
Ian Sinclair. SASOL VOELS VAN SUIDER AFRICA (3de UIT)
Kenneth Newman. What's that Bird?: A Starter's Guide to Birds of Southern Africa

[Toko]

788. Dusky Sunbird Cinnyris fuscus (Namakwasuikerbekkie)
Order: Passeriformes. Family: Nectariniidae

Dusky Sunbird.jpg (26.16 KiB) Viewed 1212 times

Description
11 cm. In both sexes the eyes are dark brown; the bill, legs and feet are black.
The male Dusky Sunbird is variable in colour. Some have an all-black head, back and breast and a contrasting white lower belly and vent; others are more mottled black and brown, sometime with black on the throat extenting onto the breast in a black stripe. The upperparts rarely show iridescence except for a slight metallic black on the head. In display, the male shows orange pectoral tufts.
The female is rather dull by comparison, with grayish-brown upper parts and white underparts. The females are the only small sunbirds with all-white underparts.
Juveniles resemble the females, but have a blackish throat.
Similar species: Can be confused with female Southern Double-collared Sunbird in the Karoo, and with female Marico Sunbird and male and female White-bellied Sunbird in northern Namibia.

Distribution
Near-endemic to southern Africa, occurring from central Angola to Namibia and the western half of South Africa, marginally extending into south-western Botswana. The Dusky Sunbird is confined to the arid and semi-arid west. In South Africa it occupies the Karoo and Kalahari and it is also widespread in western and southern Namibia. Greatest densities are along the western Orange River and the Namibian escarpment.

Habitat
It generally prefers drainage line woodland in succulent and Nama Karoo, semi-arid coastal plains with sand dunes, scrub along rivers and streams and rocky inselbergs with adequate cover, sometimes moving into gardens.

Diet
It mainly eats nectar supplemented with arthropods, hawking insects aerially and gleaning prey from foliage and spider webs. They are known to move from area to area in response to the availability of food.

Breeding
Dusky Sunbirds are monogamous. The nest is built solely by the female in about a week, consisting of an oval-shaped structure with a side top entrance made of dry grass, plant fibres, dry leaves and bark, bound together with spider web. It sometimes decorates it with wool and paper, lining the interior with soft seed fibres and animal hair. It typically attaches the back of the nest using spider web to branches of a shrub or tree, or between the thorns of a prickly-pear cactus (Opuntia). Opportunistic breeder, as it lays its eggs after rainfall, usually in the period from June-March. It lays 2-3 white eggs that are variably mottled with brown. Eggs are incubated solely by the female for about 12-13 days. The chicks are brooded solely by the female but fed by both adults, leaving the nest after about 13-15 days. As juveniles they continue to roost in the nest for about 2 weeks longer, becoming fully independent soon afterwards.
They are sometimes parasitised by the Klaas’s cuckoo.

Call
The call is commonly a loud tsk followed by trill trr, trr, trr lasting about two seconds.
Listen to Bird Call: http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Cinnyris-fuscus

Status
Common resident, near endemic.

[Toko]

788. Dusky Sunbird Cinnyris fuscus

© Michele Nel
Male

© Dewi
Namibia

© Michele Nel
Immature male

© nan
Female, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

This is one of the many Sunbirds that have recently been moved to the genus Cinnyris from the genus Nectarina.

Links:
Sabap2
Ian Sinclair. SASOL VOELS VAN SUIDER AFRICA (3de UIT)

[Toko]

The sparrows are a family of small passerine birds, Passeridae. They are also known as true sparrows, or Old World sparrows, names also used for a genus of the family Passer.
Generally, sparrows are small, plump, brown-grey birds with short tails and stubby, powerful beaks. Sparrows are physically similar to other seed-eating birds, such as finches, but have a vestigial dorsal outer primary feather and an extra bone in the tongue. This bone, the preglossale, helps stiffen the tongue when holding seeds. Other adaptations towards eating seeds are specialised bills and elongated and specialised alimentary canals.
Under recent classification main groupings of the sparrows are the true sparrows (genus Passer), the snowfinches (typically one genus, Montifringilla), and the rock sparrows (Petronia and the Pale Rockfinch). These groups are similar to each other, and are each fairly homogeneous, especially Passer. Some classifications also include the sparrow-weavers (Plocepasser).
The sparrows are indigenous to Europe, Africa and Asia. In the Americas, Australia, and other parts of the world, settlers imported some species which quickly naturalised, particularly in urban and degraded areas. House Sparrows, for example, are now found throughout North America, in every state of Australia except Western Australia, and over much of the heavily populated parts of South America.
The sparrows are generally birds of open habitats, including grasslands, deserts, and scrubland.
Sparrows are generally social birds, with many species breeding in loose colonies and most species occurring in flocks during the non-breeding season. The Great Sparrow is an exception, breeding in solitary pairs and remaining only in small family groups in the non-breeding season. Most sparrows form large roosting aggregations in the non-breeding seasons that contain only a single species (in contrast to multi-species flocks that might gather for foraging). Sites are chosen for cover and include trees, thick bushes and reed beds.
The sparrows are some of the few passerine birds that engage in dust bathing. Sparrows will first scratch a hole in the ground with their feet, then lie in it and fling dirt or sand over their bodies with flicks of their wings. They will also bathe in water, or in dry or melting snow. Water bathing is similar to dust bathing, with the sparrow standing in shallow water and flicking water over its back with its wings, also ducking its head under the water. Both activities are social, with up to a hundred birds participating at once, and is followed by preening and sometimes group singing.

[Toko]

Family Passeridae (Old World Sparrows)

Passer domesticus House Sparrow 801
Passer motitensis Great Sparrow 802
Passer melanurus Cape Sparrow 803
Passer griseus Northern Grey-headed Sparrow
Passer diffusus Southern Grey-headed Sparrow 804
Gymnoris superciliaris Yellow-throated Bush-sparrow 805

[Mel]

801. House Sparrow Passer domesticus (Huismossie)
Order: Passeriformes. Family: Passeridae

House Sparrow Passer domesticus.jpg (41.95 KiB) Viewed 1360 times

Description
Males have grey crowns and rumps, reddish brown back, a black bib on the throat, white cheeks. Bill is black in breeding season, otherwise horn-coloured.
Male may be distinguished from larger Great Sparrow by having overall duller plumage and having a grey, not bright chestnut rump.
Female and juvenile are a dull grey-brown and show a narrow off-white eye-stripe that differentiates them from adult and juvenile Yellow-throated Petronia.

Distribution
Originally from Europe and India it is now locally common from southern DRC through Zambia and Angola to southern Africa. Here it is locally common across South Africa (where it was originally introduced), extending into Zimbabwe and Botswana, while more scarce in Namibia and Mozambique.

Habitat
Prefers urban, rural and suburban areas, sometimes occurs in semi-arid shrubland.

Diet
It eats a variety of different food, including seeds, nectar, fruit and invertebrates, using a wide range of foraging techniques. It most commonly plucks food items from the ground, but it may glean insects from foliage or hawk small prey aerially.

Breeding
It is monogamous with a life-long pair bond, usually nesting solitarily in southern Africa, even though it is colonial in Europe. The nest is built by both sexes, consisting of a ball-shaped structure with an entrance on the side or on the top, usually made of grass, feathers, wool and other soft material. It is typically placed in a building, such as in a hole, under eaves or in a thatched roof, but it may also use an old palm tree or the nest of a swallow. Egg-laying season is year-round, peaking from September-December. It lays 1-6 eggs, which are mainly incubated by the female for about 11-14 days. The chicks are brooded and fed by both parents, leaving the nest after about 14-22 days and becoming fully independent about two weeks later.

Call
Various chirps, chips and a chissick. Listen to Bird Call.

Status
Very common resident. An introduced species.

[Mel]

801. House Sparrow Passer domesticus

© Mel
Male

© Toko
Kruger National Park, Babalala picnic spot

© Amoli
Male, Pilanesberg

© Flutterby
Female

Links:
http://sabap2.adu.org.za/docs/sabap1/801.pdf
http://sabap2.adu.org.za/spp_summary.ph ... &section=3
http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-house-sparrow.html

[Mel]

802. Great Sparrow Passer motitensis (Grootmossie)
Order: Passeriformes. Family: Passeridae

Great Sparrow Passer motitensis.jpg (63.47 KiB) Viewed 1332 times

Description
With 15 to 16 cm one of the largest sparrows. It has a blue-grey crown and nape, black lores, a chestnut crescent-shaped band from eye to side of neck, encircling paler grey ear-coverts. There is a small black bib on chin and central throat. The underparts are pale grey, the upperparts are chestnut and the upperwing blackish to dark brown upperwing. The tail is dark brown.
Females have the same plumage pattern but are duller and the chestnut on the head is replaced by creamy buff.
Juveniles resemble females but look more washed-out.
Similar species: Most resembles House Sparrow but is larger, more brightly coloured. Male differs from House Sparrow by its larger size, bright chestnut back and sides of the head, and chestnut (not grey) rump. Female is larger and much redder on the back and shoulders than female House Sparrow.

Distribution
Locally common in Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. It is locally common from the far northern Cape Province and western parts of the Free State and Transvaal, into southern Zimbabwe and throughout most of Botswana and Namibia.

Habitat
Occurs in dry acacia savanna and avoids humans.

Diet
Feeds on seeds of grass and cultivated cereals. Nestlings are fed with insects.

Breeding
The Great Sparrow is monogamous and builds an untidy nest, a hollow ball of grass with a side entrance, usually placed in a thorn tree. The nest is built by both sexes. Egg-laying season is from September-April. The female lays a clutch of two to four eggs, which are incubated by both sexes for about 12-14 days. The chicks are fed by both parents on a diet of insects, leaving the nest after about 15-18 days.
It is sometimes parasitized by the Diderick Cuckoo.

Call
Utters various chipper notes cheereep, cheereeu, very similar to that of House Sparrow. Listen to Bird Call.

Status
A locally common resident.

[Mel]

802. Great Sparrow Passer motitensis (Grootmossie)



Links:
Species text Sabap1
Sabap2