Moorland Chat
Pinarochroa sordida
A small, drab, dumpy, long-legged, short-tailed chat of high-elevation habitats. The tail has a black-and-white “T” pattern that is conspicuous in flight. Found mostly at high elevations in montane grassland, in moorland, and on rocky slopes. Perches conspicuously on low perches and forages by hopping across the ground. Tail pattern is similar to a wheatear’s, but Moorland Chat is smaller and shorter-tailed. Somewhat similar to other drab brownish chats, but found in different habitats, and also distinguished by the tail pattern. Gives quiet chirps, ticks, and scratchy calls.
Identification
A small, drab, dumpy, long-legged, short-tailed chat of high-elevation habitats. The tail has a black-and-white “T” pattern that is conspicuous in flight. Found mostly at high elevations in montane grassland, in moorland, and on rocky slopes. Perches conspicuously on low perches and forages by hopping across the ground. Tail pattern is similar to a wheatear’s, but Moorland Chat is smaller and shorter-tailed. Somewhat similar to other drab brownish chats, but found in different habitats, and also distinguished by the tail pattern. Gives quiet chirps, ticks, and scratchy calls.
Taxonomy
The moorland chat was formally described in 1837 by the German naturalist Eduard Rüppell from a specimen collected in the Simien Mountains of northern Ethiopia. Rüppell coined the binomial name Saxicola sordica.<p>The chat was discovered on Mount Elgon on the Uganda-Kenya border by Frederick Jackson. The English geographer Halford Mackinder brought back the same bird from Mount Kenya in 1899. He presented a paper on the first ascent to the Royal Geographical Society in 1900. The scientific results of his expedition were discussed in detail afterwards.<p>A very curious little bird was found by Mr Jackson on Mount Elgon at a height of 11,000 feet, and I remember saying to Mr. Mackinder that he was bound to find the same sort of little chat on Mount Kenya, at a height of 11,000 feet. This he did, and it was the same species as the Mount Elgon bird, an ordinary-looking little brown chat, with a good deal of white in the tail.<p>The moorland chat was usually placed in the genus Cercomela, but molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2010 and 2012 found that the species was not closely related to birds in Cercomela or to birds in the closely related genus Oenanthe. The moorland chat was therefore assigned to its own monotypic genus Pinarochroa which had been introduced by the Swedish zoologist Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1872. The genus name Pinarochroa is derived from the Greek word pinaros meaning "dirty" and khroos, khroas meaning "coloured". The specific epithet sordida is from the Latin sordidus meaning "shabby" or "dirty".<p>Four subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Pinarochroa sordida
- Authority
- (Rüppell, 1837)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Muscicapidae
- Genus
- Pinarochroa
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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