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Red-Faced Crimsonwing | Cryptospiza reichenovii
Reichenows bergastrild | Estrilda de Reichenow
The Red-Faced Crimsonwing is a shy waxbill of montane forest undergrowth, with a dark red back and, in the male, a red mask around the eye. In the region it is confined to the montane forests of the Eastern Highlands, Malawi and the Angolan escarpment forests.
Voice
A high, thin and sharp tsip or tseet, often repeated from cover. The song is a soft, high, rapid series of chirping and whistled notes.
Recording: Louis A. Hansen — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11 to 12 cm. Male: head and underparts olive-grey to olive-brown, with a red patch around the eye that runs from the lores to behind the eye. Mantle, back and rump are deep crimson, and the flanks show a few red spots. Wings and tail are blackish. The bill is black. Female: like the male but without red around the eye; instead there is a narrow pale, yellowish eye-ring on a plain olive head. Juveniles are duller, with less red on the back.
Confusion species
The male Green Twinspot (Mandingoa nitidula) also has a red face, but a green back and black, white-spotted underparts. The Lesser Seedcracker (Pyrenestes minor) has a red head and rump, but a much heavier bill and a brown back. The African Firefinch (Lagonosticta rubricata) is red below rather than olive. The combination of red back, olive-grey underparts and red eye patch is diagnostic.
Habitat
Undergrowth, edges and clearings of Afromontane forest, often with bracken, brambles or bamboo, mostly above 1,200 m; also in forested ravines and dense scrub along forest edges. It feeds low in the vegetation and on the ground on seeds, mainly of grasses and brambles.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe (Nyanga, Bvumba, Chimanimani, Chirinda) and the adjacent mountains of Mozambique, in the highland forests of Malawi and north-eastern Zambia (Nyika, Mafinga), and in isolation in the escarpment forests of Cuanza Sul in western Angola (Gabela, Kumbira). Beyond the region in the mountains of Tanzania, the Albertine Rift, the Cameroon highlands and on Bioko.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look for it in the Bvumba or at Chirinda along quiet forest paths with ferns and brambles. When flushed the birds fly off low, briefly showing the dark red back; the high tsip often gives them away first. Usually alone or in pairs, sometimes in mixed parties with other seed-eaters of the forest edge.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Locally fairly common in suitable montane forest, but in the region tied to small, fragmented forest patches; the Angolan population in particular is vulnerable to logging in the escarpment forest.
Scientific name
Cryptospiza reichenovii | (Hartlaub, 1874)
Hartlaub described the species in 1874 as Pytelia reichenovii; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cryptospiza was introduced in 1884 by Salvadori. Cryptospiza comes from the Greek kruptos, 'hidden', and spiza, 'finch' — for the shy habits in dense undergrowth. reichenovii honours the German ornithologist Anton Reichenow (1847–1941), curator in Berlin and a leading authority on African birds. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bondongo, Cameroon.