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Black-Cheeked Lovebird | Agapornis nigrigenis
Zwartwangagapornis | Inseparable Cachetón
The Black-Cheeked Lovebird is a small green lovebird with a dark brownish-black face and a white eye-ring. It has one of the smallest ranges of any African parrot, almost entirely in south-western Zambia, and must drink daily, which makes it vulnerable in the dry season.
Voice
A high tsheek and a fast, strident twittering, like that of Lilian's Lovebird but by some accounts slightly sharper. Flocks are especially noisy at drinking sites and in feeding trees.
Recording: Dries Van de Loock — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm, small and compact, with a short tail. The face, cheeks and throat are brownish-black, with an orange-red to salmon patch on the upper breast below. The crown and hindcrown are brownish olive, the rest of the body grass-green; the nape has a yellowish tinge. The bill is bright red, and a broad bare white ring surrounds the eye, standing out sharply against the dark face. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller, with a dark base to the bill.
Confusion species
Lilian's Lovebird (Agapornis lilianae) has an orange-red face without black and a green crown; it lives downstream of the Victoria Falls and the two species do not overlap naturally. Escaped Yellow-collared Lovebirds (Agapornis personatus) have a blacker head and a yellow collar and breast.
Habitat
Mopane woodland and mixed broadleaf woodland with mopane in low-lying valleys, usually within a few kilometres of permanent surface water, and also riverine woodland. It eats grass and herb seeds, flowers and leaf buds, and in the dry season also spilt or ripening millet and sorghum. It nests in holes in mopane trees and roosts communally in tree holes at night.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Almost endemic to south-western Zambia: between the Zambezi, the Kafue and the Machile River, with core areas around Sesheke and Mulobezi, the southern Kafue National Park and the surroundings of the Victoria Falls. Records in the extreme north-east of Namibia (Zambezi Region), north-western Zimbabwe and northern Botswana along the Chobe are scarce and mostly concern wanderers or scattered small groups. It occurs nowhere else in the world.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best in the late dry season (September–November) at the last waterholes in the mopane of south-western Zambia, for example in the Machile area or around Mulobezi; flocks come to drink in the morning and afternoon. At the Victoria Falls itself the chance is small and reports are often unconfirmed.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. The world population is estimated at ten thousand birds or fewer. Early in the twentieth century tens of thousands were caught for the cage-bird trade, after which the species declined steeply. Today the drying of waterholes during a drier climatic period, the conversion of mopane to farmland and disturbance at drinking sites are the main threats.
Scientific name
Agapornis nigrigenis | Sclater, 1906
Sclater described the species in 1906 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Agapornis was introduced in 1836 by Selby. Agapornis comes from the Greek agapē, 'love', and ornis, 'bird' — for the close bond between the members of a pair. nigrigenis is Latin for 'black-cheeked', from niger, 'black', and gena, 'cheek'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Muguzzi River, Zambia.