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Levaillant's Cisticola | Cisticola tinniens
Valleigraszanger | Cistícola de Levaillant
Levaillant's Cisticola is the cisticola of wet vleis, reedbeds and rank waterside growth, and one of the most conspicuous and easily recognised cisticolas in the region. With its rufous crown, heavily black-streaked grey back, rusty wings and long rufous tail it is, almost anywhere with standing water, the first cisticola to show itself.
Voice
A lively, melodious song of varied notes and trills, for example chirp-trrrup-trreee or chi-chi-chirrr, often as a duet by the pair. When alarmed, a plaintive repeated tee-tee-tee and sharp, grating scolding notes, tchrr-tchrr, while the bird hops restlessly about with the tail raised.
Recording: African Bioacoustics Community — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 14 cm, slim and fairly long-tailed. The crown is warm rufous and unstreaked or only faintly streaked; the mantle is grey with broad black streaks, giving a strongly contrasting, almost chequered pattern in breeding plumage. The edges of the flight feathers form a bright rufous panel in the closed wing. The tail is long, graduated and rufous, with a dark subterminal spot and pale tips. Face and underparts are dull white to pale buff; the bill is blackish-brown with a pink base. In non-breeding (winter) plumage the bird is browner and less contrastingly streaked, with a slightly longer tail. Juveniles have a yellowish wash below. The sexes are alike. It sings from a reed stem or small bush, rarely in a high song flight; when disturbed it flies off low and briefly and scolds loudly.
Confusion species
Rufous-Winged Cisticola Cisticola galactotes and Luapula Cisticola Cisticola luapula share the same marsh habitat but have a greyish-brown, not rufous tail and, in breeding plumage, an almost black back without the grey intervening stripes; their song is a dry, buzzing trill, not the melodious warbling of Levaillant's. Chirping Cisticola Cisticola pipiens of the Okavango and Zambezi areas is larger and browner, with a broad, often fanned tail and a different, squeaky trilling song. Rattling Cisticola Cisticola chiniana has a similar rufous crown but a brown, more weakly streaked back, lives in dry bushveld and rattles. Habitat (wet), rufous tail plus grey-and-black streaked back and the bright, cheerful song together settle it.
Habitat
Reedbeds, rushes, sedges and rank tall grass in and around vleis, marshes, streams, dams and damp hollows, from the lowlands up into the high mountains; also in wet ditches and drains between farmland. It forages low in vegetation and on the ground for small insects and spiders. The nest is an oval ball of grass with a side entrance, low in dense vegetation over or close to water.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region widespread in the east and south of South Africa: from the Western Cape (race elegans) through the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, and in Lesotho and Eswatini. Northwards in the highlands of Zimbabwe and western Mozambique, with separate populations in western and eastern Zambia and in interior Angola. Absent from the dry western half of South Africa and from Botswana and Namibia. Beyond the region in southern DR Congo, south-western Tanzania and the highlands of Kenya.
- 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 easiest cisticola to start with. Check any reedbed or wet vlei on the Highveld or near the coast; in the breeding season (summer) males sing freely from reed plumes. Look for the combination rufous crown + rufous tail + grey-and-black streaked back; knowing this species well gives a reference point for the harder marsh cisticolas such as Rufous-winged and Luapula. Soft pishing often draws it up to a lookout.
Conservation status
Not threatened and common in suitable vleis. Habitat is lost locally to drainage, overgrazing and the burning or mowing of waterside vegetation, but the species quickly colonises new wet sites such as dams and irrigation ditches.
Scientific name
Cisticola tinniens | (Lichtenstein, 1842)
Lichtenstein described the species in 1842 as Malurus tinniens; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cisticola was introduced in 1829 by Kaup. Cisticola combines the Ancient Greek kisthos 'rock-rose' with the Latin colere 'to dwell'. tinniens is Latin for 'ringing, tinkling', for the clear, tinkling song. The specimen the first description was based on came from Vaal River, South Africa.