Karoo Scrub-Robin
Tychaedon coryphoeus
A drab, gray-brown scrub-robin with bold white tail tips, eyebrow, and throat markings. Pairs are active and noisy in dry scrubby thickets and arid brush, where they vocalize prominently from the top of shrubs, fences, and rocks, or hop and run around on the ground, sometimes with their tails cocked. A scolding harsh contact call and warbler-like song draws attention to them. Other scrub-robins in the same range are more strikingly colored, and chats lack the white tail tips of Karoo Scrub-Robin.
Identification
It is 17 cm long and weighs 19 g. The upperparts are drab greyish brown; the face with a narrow, white supercilium above thin black eye-stripe. Partial whitish eye-ring below eye. Closed tail darker than rump and mantle. Upper wing coverts and flight feathers brown, underwing dull buffy brown. Bill black, eyes brown and legs as well as feet black.<p>Song calls vary between individuals, e.g. chip, swee-chipswirraree, seeep-seeep-treeeeyer, repeated 5 – 10 times.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Tychaedon coryphoeus
- Authority
- (Vieillot, 1817)
- Order
- Name not found in major avian taxonomy databases.
- Family
- Nectariniidae
- Genus
- Tychaedon
Range and habitat
Favours bare ground beneath ca. 1 m high vegetation and can be found in the low shrublands of the Karoo and Namaqualand in South Africa, in drainage line woodland. Also occasionally seen among tall vegetation at the base of farm dam walls.
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Cinderella Waxbill
Glaucestrilda thomensis
Pretty little gray waxbill with a black tail and a red rump which is conspicuous in flight. The male has red and black under the tail, while the female is much paler and grayer below. Both sexes have pink in the bill. Found in arid woodland and savanna, including mopane woodland. Shy and inconspicuous; usually in small flocks. Calls include rising whistles. Very similar to Black-tailed Waxbill, but prefers drier habitat and is paler gray, with pink on the bill.
Gray Peacock-Pheasant
Polyplectron bicalcaratum
A strange-looking pheasant which passes ghostlike through dense forests, seldom venturing into the open. Both sexes are gray-brown with iridescent spotting on the wings, but the male has a longer tail and a bushy, forward-arching crest. Display involves opening up the tail and spreading the wings to flash their iridescent peacock-like spots. Song, a series of ascending hoarse croaks, can often be heard in the morning.
Yellow Bittern
Botaurus sinensis
Very small heron of marshy, well-vegetated water bodies. Adult pale orangish brown or yellow, depending on the light, with a narrow dark cap. Juvenile darker above with pale feather edges. Can be inconspicuous in dense vegetation, but frequently makes short flights; on flying birds, note dark flight feathers contrasting with pale yellowish wing coverts. Typically quiet, but occasionally gives harsh grating calls when flushed.
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