Red-billed Oxpecker - BirdForum Opus

Photo by John Dempsey
Richmond South Africa, August 2003

Buphagus erythrorynchus

Buphagus erythrorhynchus

Identification

About 9 inches (20cm) in length.

• Short, thick red bill
• Red eyes surrounded by large, bright-yellow eye-rings
• Brown-grey head, neck, wings and tail
• Pale yellow underside

Sexes similar. Juveniles like adults but first with a yellow bill, changing to dark brown within the first 2 months. Eyes dark brown.

Similar species

Yellow-billed Oxpecker has a yellow base of the bill and no eye-rings.

Adult and young birds on a giraffe
Photo by Stephen Powell
Makalali Reserve South Africa, May 2008

Distribution

Southern and eastern Africa.
Found in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, southeast Sudan, Somalia and south patchily to Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi, extreme southeast Angola, northeast Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, eSwatini and south Mozambique.
Widespread and common in game reserves.

Taxonomy

Some authorities¹ list this as a monotypic species, others list six subspecies.
Hybrids with Yellow-billed Oxpecker have been recorded.

Habitat

Savanna and farmland. Some trees are required for breeding and roosting. Occurs up to 3000m.

Behaviour

Photo © by volker sthamer
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, 19 September 2019

Almost all of their time is spend on large mammals (wild animals and domesticated).

Diet

Feeds on the host's skin parasites, bothersome flies, dead host skin, and sometimes a special treat of blood from a wound.

Breeding

Breeding usually after rainfalls. A co-operative breeder, a pair is assisted by several helpers, which help feed the young. The nest are lined with hair taken from livestock and placed in a tree hole. Lays 2-5 eggs.

Movements

A resident species with only some minor local movements.

Vocalisation

The call is a trik-quisss.

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.
2. Craig, A. J. F. (2020). Red-billed Oxpecker (Buphagus erythrorynchus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.reboxp1.01

• List of references

Recommended Citation

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

External Links

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