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Bleating Camaroptera | Camaroptera brachyura
Mekkercamaroptera | Camaróptera Baladora
The Bleating Camaroptera is a small, short-tailed warbler with green wings which, in dense scrub, is mainly noticed for its nasal bleat, like that of a young goat kid. It is one of the commonest birds of the undergrowth in the north and east of the region. Two clearly different forms occur in the region: a green-backed one in the east and a grey-backed one inland.
Voice
The most frequently heard sound is a nasal, plaintive bleat, mbeeeh, given long after the breeding season. The song is a loud, rapidly repeated clicking or ticking, chik-chik-chik-chik or bideep-bideep, often from a hidden spot in a bush. When disturbed a dry rattling alarm.
Recording: Walter Wallner — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, compact, with a short tail that is often held upright. In all forms the wings are olive-green, the underparts off-white with grey breast and flanks and white thighs. The green-backed form of the east coast (Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Eswatini, Mozambique, eastern Zimbabwe and Malawi) is also green on crown, back and tail. The grey-backed forms of the interior have grey head, back and tail, contrasting with the green wings; in these forms the non-breeding plumage is browner above and paler below. The iris is pale brown to orange-brown, the bill dark, the legs pink. The sexes are alike. The combination of short, cocked tail, green wing and the bleat is diagnostic.
Confusion species
The wren-warblers, such as Stierling's Wren-Warbler Calamonastes stierlingi and Barred Wren-Warbler Calamonastes fasciolatus, also cock their tails, but have long tails and barred underparts and no green in the wing. Prinias, such as Tawny-Flanked Prinia Prinia subflava, have a long tail and a supercilium. Yellow-Bellied Eremomela Eremomela icteropygialis is smaller, with a yellowish belly, and forages higher in trees. In northern Angola the related Yellow-Browed Camaroptera Camaroptera superciliaris (yellow supercilium) and Hartert's Camaroptera Camaroptera harterti occur.
Habitat
Dense scrub and undergrowth at forest edges, in riverine, coastal and gallery forest, bushveld with a dense shrub layer and rank growth on termite mounds, and also in gardens and parks with dense planting. It forages low in bushes and on the ground for insects; pairs remain in their territory all year.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region widespread in Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, in northern and eastern Botswana, northern Namibia (Caprivi, Kavango and the north of the central plateau) and in eastern South Africa, from Limpopo, Mpumalanga and northern Gauteng and North West via Eswatini and KwaZulu-Natal south to the Eastern Cape coast. It is absent from Lesotho, the arid west and the Western Cape. Beyond the region over much of sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal to Ethiopia and Somalia.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Year-round; the bleat is the signal. It can be found in the undergrowth of riverine forest in the Kruger Park, in the coastal forests of KwaZulu-Natal and in any garden with dense bushes in the lowveld. Stand still by a bush where the bleat comes from; the bird often comes inquisitively to the edge, tail cocked.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common and widespread, and well adapted to secondary growth and gardens. It declines locally where scrub is cleared completely or grazed flat.
Scientific name
Camaroptera brachyura | (Vieillot, 1820)
Vieillot described the species in 1820 as Sylvia brachyura; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Camaroptera was introduced in 1850 by Sundevall. Camaroptera comes from the Greek kamara, 'arch, vault', and pteron, 'wing' — for the short, strongly rounded wings. brachyura comes from the Greek brakhus, 'short', and oura, 'tail' — for the short, often cocked tail. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cape of Good Hope.