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Rufous-Crowned Eremomela | Eremomela badiceps
Roodkaperemomela | Eremomela Capirotada
The Rufous-Crowned Eremomela is a small, active warbler of the lowland rainforest canopy, recognised by a rufous cap above a black eye-stripe. It moves through the treetops in noisy parties and often joins mixed-species flocks. In southern Africa it occurs only in northern Angola.
Voice
A high, sibilant, thin twittering, tsee-tsee-tsee or tsew-tsew, with which members of a party keep constant contact. The song is a quick, dry series, chip-chip-chew, often given by several birds at once. The party twittering high in the crowns is usually the first sign of the species.
Recording: Jonathan Onongo — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 10 cm. Forehead, crown and nape are warm chestnut, sharply set off against a black loral stripe and eye-stripe that runs behind the eye. The upperparts are grey with an olive tinge, the wings and fairly short tail dark grey. The throat is bright white, the rest of the underparts off-white with a yellowish wash on the flanks and lower belly. The bill is fine and dark, the legs pinkish-brown. The sexes are alike; juveniles lack the rufous cap and are greenish grey on the head. It searches restlessly through the foliage and often hangs from the outermost twigs.
Confusion species
In this part of Angola confusion is mainly possible with Green-Capped Eremomela Eremomela scotops, which has a greenish cap, a yellowish throat and breast and a pale iris, and lives in open woodland rather than closed forest. Black-Necked Eremomela Eremomela atricollis also has a rufous forehead, but shows a narrow black collar below a yellow throat and lives in miombo. Yellow-Breasted Apalis Apalis flavida has a green back, a yellow breast-band and a longer tail.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of moist lowland forest and gallery forest, also old secondary forest, clearings with tall remnant trees and shade-grown coffee. It forages high in the foliage for small insects and spiders, in parties of four to ten birds, often together with other small insectivores.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region only in the north and north-west of Angola: Cabinda, the northern scarp forests of Uíge and Cuanza Norte, and gallery forests further east. Beyond the region from Sierra Leone through the West African and Congolian rainforest blocks to Uganda and southern DR Congo.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Present year-round; search forest edges and clearings where you can see into the crowns, for example along roads through the scarp forest at Kumbira or Kalandula or in the forests of Uíge. Listen for the sibilant party twittering and follow the group until a bird appears at the edge of the foliage; the rufous cap is then quickly seen. A telescope or bright binoculars help against the backlight.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in most of its range, and the species tolerates secondary forest and shaded plantations. In Angola, however, lowland and scarp forest is under pressure from logging and conversion to farmland, making local populations smaller and more fragmented.
Scientific name
Eremomela badiceps | (Fraser, 1843)
Fraser described the species in 1843 as Sylvia badiceps; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Eremomela was introduced in 1850 by Sundevall. Eremomela comes from the Greek erēmos, 'desert', and melos, 'song' — 'desert songster', for the arid regions where the first species were found. badiceps comes from the Latin badius, 'chestnut', and -ceps, 'headed' — for the chestnut head. The specimen the first description was based on came from Malabo, Bioko (Equatorial Guinea).