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Lesser Jacana | Microparra capensis
Dwergjacana | Jacana Chica
The Lesser Jacana is the smallest jacana in the world, barely larger than a sparrow, and an inconspicuous inhabitant of floating vegetation on quiet lagoons and floodplains. It closely resembles a juvenile African Jacana and is therefore easily overlooked.
Voice
A soft, buzzing prrrp or chrrr, and a series of rapid, chattering ticks, kit-kit-kit, in alarm or in flight. Much less loud and high than African Jacana.
Recording: Dries Van de Loock — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–16 cm. The crown and hindneck are warm chestnut, with a broad white supercilium and a black eye-stripe. The mantle is olive-brown and the underparts are white, with a golden wash on the breast sides. In flight the black flight feathers with a white trailing edge to the secondaries stand out, as does the black underwing. The toes are long but proportionally shorter than in African Jacana. The bill is brown and the legs grey-green. The sexes are alike; juveniles have a browner crown and duller markings.
Confusion species
A juvenile African Jacana Actophilornis africanus has a similar pattern of white supercilium, dark crown and white underparts, but is much larger, has a dark hindneck, a heavier bill with the beginning of a frontal shield and longer legs, and lacks the white trailing edge to the wing. When in doubt, size next to adult African Jacanas settles it.
Habitat
Lagoons, floodplains, quiet river backwaters and pans with a dense layer of floating plants such as water lilies, duckweed and submerged plants with fringing vegetation. It often chooses denser or more sheltered spots than African Jacana and walks over the vegetation with quick, pecking movements, often with quivering wings. It feeds mainly on small insects and larvae.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Best represented in the Okavango Delta, along the Chobe and Linyanti and in the Zambezi Region of Namibia, in Zambia (Kafue Flats, Bangweulu, Barotseland), Malawi, Mozambique (especially the Zambezi valley and delta) and the Zambezi valley of Zimbabwe; also locally in Angola. In South Africa scarce and irregular, mainly in Limpopo (Nylsvley) and northern KwaZulu-Natal. Beyond the region it is widely scattered in West, Central and East Africa.
- 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
In the Okavango, search from a mokoro or boat along the edges of the water-lily beds, preferably in the morning. Watch for a small, pale bird that flies up briefly and fast with dangling legs and drops back among the leaves after a few metres: the white trailing edge to the wing is then the best feature.
Conservation status
Not threatened, but local and not numerous in southern Africa. Its habitat is sensitive to changes in flood regimes from dams and water abstraction, and to invasive aquatic plants that smother the open floating vegetation.
Scientific name
Microparra capensis | (Smith, 1839)
Smith described the species in 1839 as Parra capensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Microparra was introduced in 1877 by Cabanis. Microparra comes from the Greek mikros, 'small', and Parra, the old genus name of the jacanas — the smallest jacana. capensis means 'of the Cape' — the type was collected in the Cape Colony, near Algoa Bay. The specimen the first description was based on came from near Algoa Bay, Eastern Cape.