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Chestnut-Winged Starling | Onychognathus fulgidus
Kastanjevleugelspreeuw | Estornino Alirrufo
Chestnut-Winged Starling is a slender, long-tailed forest starling of West and Central Africa, which within the region occurs only in the forests of northern Angola. It lives in the crowns of tall trees, where pairs and small groups fly over with loud whistles.
Voice
Loud, clear whistles, tee-oo and choo-wee, often in flight and from the crowns; also a soft, chattering song of whistles and nasal notes.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
27–30 cm, slender, with a long, graduated tail and a fairly thin, slightly decurved bill. The male is black with a green to purplish-blue gloss, strongest on the head and mantle; the female has a grey head and throat with dark streaks and a greenish gloss. In both sexes the primaries are chestnut with dark tips, a striking rufous wing patch in flight. The eye is red. Juveniles are duller, without a grey head. It flies fast and direct above the canopy.
Confusion species
Narrow-Tailed Starling Poeoptera lugubris lives in the same forests, but is much smaller, with a yellow eye and a narrow, pointed tail; only the female has rufous wings. Splendid Starling Lamprotornis splendidus is stockier, with a shorter tail, a pale eye, no rufous in the wing and loudly swishing wingbeats. Red-Winged Starling Onychognathus morio does not occur in Angola; any red-winged starling in Angolan forest is this species.
Habitat
The canopy of humid lowland and escarpment forest, gallery forest, secondary forest and old coffee plantations under shade trees, also forest edges and clearings with tall remnant trees. It eats mainly fruit, including figs and oil-palm fruits, and insects. It nests in tree holes high in dead trees.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region only in northern Angola: Cabinda, Uíge, Cuanza Norte, Bengo, Malanje and Lunda Norte (Dundo). Beyond the region from Guinea and Sierra Leone through the Guinean forest belt and the Congo Basin to western Uganda, and on São Tomé.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Year-round. The forests around Uíge and Quitexe (Damengola), Tombingo Forest and the forests near N'dalatando in Cuanza Norte are the best sites. Listen for whistles above the canopy and check passing birds for rufous wings and a long tail.
Conservation status
Not threatened; widespread and fairly common in the Central African forest. In Angola it is tied to the remaining forest in the north-west and the Lunda provinces, which continues to shrink through logging and farming.
Scientific name
Onychognathus fulgidus | Hartlaub, 1849
Hartlaub described the species in 1849 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Onychognathus in that same work. Onychognathus combines the Greek onyx 'nail, claw' and gnathos 'jaw'. fulgidus is Latin for 'shining, glittering' — for the metallic black plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from São Tomé.