Includes: Thick-billed Honeyguide
- Indicator minor
Identification
14–16 cm (5½-6¼ in)
- Greyish-green upperparts
- White loral spot
- White outer tail feathers visible in flight
Distribution
Sub-Saharan Africa except for coastal West Africa, Congo Basin and desert areas in the Horn of Africa and southern Africa.
Taxonomy
Subspecies
Indicator minor has 8 subspecies[1]:
- I. m. ussheri: Disjunct from southeast Sierra Leone to southern Ghana
- I. m. conirostris: southern Nigeria to Democratic Republic of the Congo, western Kenya, and northern Angola
- I. m. senegalensis: from Senegal and Gambia, to Chad, northern Cameroon, and western Sudan;
- I. m. riggenbachi: Central Cameroon to southwestern Sudan, western Uganda and Burundi;
- I. m. diadematus: Central Sudan to Ethiopia and Somalia;
- I. m. damarensis: Southern Angola and northern Namibia;
- I. m. teitensis: southeastern South Sudan, southeastern Ethiopia, and southern Somalia south and southwest to Angola, northeastern Namibia, Zimbabwe, and central Mozambique;
- I. m. minor: Southern Namibia and south-eastern Botswana to South Africa, eSwatini and southern Mozambique;
The first two subspecies were formerly considered a separate species, Thick-billed Honeyguide, Indicator conirostris.
Habitat
Woodland, savanna, forest edges, riverine forest, plantations, parks and wooded gardens; seldom strays far from cover.
Behaviour
This bird does not guide to bees nests but are frequently found around bee hives and nests. Are also able to catch insects in flycatcher fashion.
Diet
Their main diet consists of beeswax, with the addition of some bees, including sweatbees.
Breeding
Like the other Honeyguides it is a brood parasite of other hole and cavity nesters such as barbets and bee-eaters. Honeyguide chicks hatch with a pronounced hook to the bill-tip which they use to wound & kill the young of the host species.
Vocalisation
Characteristic hip, hip, hip" repeated up to 40 times. The two subspecies formerly considered the Thick-billed Honeyguide were described as having a deeper voice than other subspecies, more "twip twip twip".
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2023. IOC World Bird List (v 13.1)_red. Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.13.1. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
- Avibase
- Short, L.L., J. F. M. Horne, G. M. Kirwan, N. Moura, and P. F. D. Boesman (2022). Lesser Honeyguide (Indicator minor), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (B. K. Keeney and S. M. Billerman, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.y00400.01
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Lesser Honeyguide. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Lesser_Honeyguide
External Links
GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1
