Long-billed Crombec - BirdForum Opus

Alternative name: Cape Crombec

Sylvietta rufescens

Photo by safariranger
Nylsvlei, Limpopo Province, South Africa, July 2005

Identification

Length 10-12 cm, mass 9-13 g. Tail very short; appears tailless in the field.

Upper parts brownish grey to blueish grey and underparts tawny cinnamon to cinnamon buff. The eyebrow is whitish to pale tawny, contrasting with a dark eye-stripe.

Distribution

Photo by Max Holdt
Windhoek, Namibia, May 2006

Africa south of the equator: Western Angola, eastern DRC and western Tanzania south to South Africa.

Taxonomy

Subspecies^[1]

Sylvietta rufescens has seven subspecies that differ mainly in the shades of grey and brown on their upper parts and shades of buff and rufous on their under parts:

• S. r. adelphe:

• Zaire to Zambia and northern Malawi

• S. r. ansorgei:

• Coastal Angola (Benguela to Luanda)

• S. r. flecki:

• Southern Angola to eastern Namibia, eastern Botswana, south-western Zambia and Zimbabwe

• S. r. pallida:

• South-eastern Zambia to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Transvaal

• S. r. rufescens:

• Southern Botswana to south-western Transvaal and western Cape Province

• S. r. diverga:

• Southern Transvaal to Orange Free State and eastern Cape Province

• S. r. resurga:

• Natal

An additional subspecies ochrocara is generally considered invalid^[2].

Habitat

Woodland, savanna, arid shrublands.

Behaviour

Diet

Forages restlessly in bushes and the lower canpoy of trees, mainly for invertebrates; also eats seeds, fruit and nectar. Often seen in mixed-species feeding flocks; its often-repeated prrrp contact call is probably key to keepng these parties together.

Breeding

Monogamous and territorial. The nest is a deep purse of plant fibres and spider web, built about a metre above the ground, and suspended from the end of a branch of a bush or small tree. One to three eggs are laid August to February; incubated for 14 days by both sexes.

References

1. Clements, JF. 2009. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2009. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019.

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Long-billed Crombec. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 28 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Long-billed_Crombec

External Links

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