All species › Passerines › Waxbills › Orange-Cheeked Waxbill
Orange-Cheeked Waxbill | Estrilda melpoda
Oranjewangastrild | Estrilda Carinaranja
The Orange-Cheeked Waxbill is a small West and Central African waxbill with a striking orange cheek patch, which within the region reaches only northern Angola and north-western Zambia. Small groups move through rank grass along streams and fields.
Voice
A thin, sharp tsip or cheep as contact call, heard constantly from foraging groups, and a short, high song of a few drawn-out notes, tsee-tsee-tseee.
Recording: Bram Piot — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 10 cm. Crown and nape are pale grey; around the eye and across the cheek lies a large, bright orange patch that extends behind the eye. The throat is whitish, the underparts pale greyish buff with a yellowish or orange-tinged centre to the belly. Back and wings are warm brown, the rump bright red, the tail black. The bill is red. The sexes are alike, the female with a slightly smaller and paler cheek patch. Juveniles have a black bill and a faint yellowish cheek patch.
Confusion species
Fawn-Breasted Waxbill (Estrilda paludicola), found in the same areas, also has a grey head, a red rump and a red bill, but lacks the orange cheek and has a pale brown breast. Common Waxbill (Estrilda astrild) is larger and longer-tailed, finely barred throughout, with a red eye-stripe instead of an orange cheek. Orange-Breasted Waxbill (Amandava subflava) has an orange-yellow belly, greenish upperparts and, in the male, a red supercilium, without a grey head.
Habitat
Rank, tall grass along streams, riverbanks and marsh edges, fallow land, cultivation, roadsides and the edges of gallery forest and villages. It lives in groups of up to several dozen birds that pluck seeds from grass heads and fly off together when disturbed.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region in northern and north-western Angola, south to about the central plateau, and in north-western Zambia (Mwinilunga and the area around the source of the Zambezi), with a few reports from Luapula. Beyond the region from Senegal to the Central African Republic and the DR Congo. Introduced elsewhere, including Puerto Rico and Hawaii.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In north-western Zambia, for example around Mwinilunga, search rank grass along streams and dambos and along fields and village edges; in northern Angola it is often common in such places. A group sitting on grass seeds shows the orange cheeks well at close range; in flight the red rump and the high tsip stand out.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common to very common across most of its world range, and locally common within the region. It benefits from agriculture and cleared land; in parts of West Africa it is trapped in large numbers for the cage-bird trade.
Scientific name
Estrilda melpoda | (Vieillot, 1817)
Vieillot described the species in 1817 as Fringilla melpoda; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Estrilda was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Estrilda was formed from astrild, the epithet Linnaeus gave the common waxbill; the origin of that word is uncertain — perhaps a German or Dutch avicultural term for a waxbill, perhaps a misprint for Estrilda. melpoda comes from the Greek melpōdos, 'singing songs', from melpō, 'to sing and dance'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Senegal.