Red-billed Oxpecker
Buphagus erythroryncha
A bulbul-sized olive-brown bird that sports a diagnostic all-red bill and a red eye surrounded by a fleshy yellow wattle. The juvenile lacks the bright bill and eye coloration. Small groups occur in savanna and farmland, where they require large wild ungulates and domestic stock to forage on; they clamber agilely over host mammals, gleaning ticks, mites, and other ectoparasites, and occasionally drinking host blood. As they fly between large mammals, they give a distinctive “tsik-tsik” call. The similar Yellow-billed Oxpecker differs from Red-billed Oxpecker by having a yellow bill base and pale rump and lacking an eye-wattle.
Identification
A juvenile oxpecker is darker brown than its parents. Its bill is dark olive at first, but gradually takes on adult colouration after four months.[citation needed] Its flight is strong and direct, and their call is a hissy crackling trik-quisss.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Buphagus erythroryncha
- Authority
- (Stanley, 1814)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Buphagidae
- Genus
- Buphagus
Range and habitat
The red-billed oxpecker is a native of the savanna of sub-Saharan Africa. It ranges across Ethiopia and Somalia through Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia to southern Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, southern Mozambique, and north-eastern South Africa.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The red-billed oxpecker nests in tree holes lined with hair plucked from livestock. It lays two to five eggs, with three being the average. Outside the breeding season it forms large, chattering flocks.<p>The preferred habitat is open country, and the red-billed oxpecker eats insects. Both the English and scientific names arise from this species' habit of perching on large wild and domesticated mammals such as cattle and eating ticks. This species's relationship with rhinos gives the Swahili name Askari wa kifaru meaning "the rhino's guard".<p>An adult will take nearly 100 blood-engorged female Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) decoloratus ticks, or more than 12,000 larvae in a day. However, their preferred food is blood, and while they may take ticks bloated with blood, they also feed on it directly, pecking at the mammal's wounds to keep them open.<p>Field observations in rhinos have shown oxpeckers warning the nearsighted rhino of danger.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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