Sickle-winged chat

Sickle-winged chat
Sickle-winged chat in Natal, South Africa
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Muscicapidae
Genus: Cercomela
Species: C. sinuata
Binomial name
Cercomela sinuata
(Sundevall, 1858)
Synonyms

Emarginata sinuata

The sickle-winged chat or sicklewing chat (Cercomela sinuata) is a small passerine bird of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae endemic to southern Africa. It is a common resident breeder in South Africa and Lesotho, and is also found in southernmost areas of Botswana and Namibia. Its habitat is Karoo scrub, short grassland, and barren sandy or stony areas. In western coastal areas, it also occurs on agricultural land.

Taxonomy

The sickle-winged chat was formerly placed in the genus Cercomela. It was suggested to be placed in Emarginata after molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2010 and 2012 found that Cercomela was polyphyletic.,[2][3][4] however many taxonomists continue to place the bird in Cercomela.

Description

The sickle-winged chat is 14–15 cm long and weighs around 19 gm. Its upperparts are dark grey, but it has brown wings and a rufous patch behind the eye. The tail and rump are buff-pink, with an inverted wedge of black at the end of the tail. Its underparts are off-white, the short straight bill, legs and feet are black and the eye is brown. The sexes are similar, but the juvenile has buff tips to its feathers.

The contrast between the dark upperparts and the much paler underparts distinguish this species from the more uniformly coloured familiar chat. It also has the pale salmon-buff on the rump extending only onto the base of the tail, whereas the familiar chat has a richer hue which almost reaches the tip of the tail.

The sickle-winged chat has a chak-chak call and a warbled song.

Behaviour

The sickle-winged chat builds a cup-shaped nest of straw and leaves on the ground, usually under a bush or shrub. It lays two to four green or blue eggs. This species is monogamous.

The sickle-winged chat is usually seen singly or in pairs. It forages on the ground or at the base of trees for insects.

In comparison with the familiar chat, it spends more time on the ground and runs more swiftly. It flicks its wings, but less frequently than the familiar chat.

Conservation status

This common species has a large range, with an estimated extent of 850,000 km2. The population size is believed to be large, and the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e. declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations). For these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 BirdLife International (2012). "Cercomela sinuata". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. ↑ Outlaw, R.K.; Voelker, G.; Bowie, R.C.K. (2010). "Shall we chat? Evolutionary relationships in the genus Cercomela (Muscicapidae) and its relation to Oenanthe reveals extensive polyphyly among chats distributed in Africa, India and the Palearctic". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 55 (1): 284–292. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2009.09.023.
  3. ↑ Aliabadian, M.; Kaboli, M.; Förschler, M.I.; Nijman, V.; Chamani, A.; Tillier, A.; Prodon, R.; Pasquet, E.; Ericson, P.G.P.; Zuccon, D. (2012). "Convergent evolution of morphological and ecological traits in the open-habitat chat complex (Aves, Muscicapidae: Saxicolinae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 65 (1): 35–45. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2012.05.011.
  4. ↑ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David (eds.). "Chats, Old World flycatchers". World Bird List Version 6.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
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