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Swamp Boubou | Laniarius bicolor
Moerasfiskaal | Bubú Bicolor
Swamp Boubou is the boubou of papyrus and riverine forest: crisply black and white and tied to water. In the Okavango and along the Chobe and upper Zambezi its duet comes from almost every dense patch of riverside growth, a clear whistle from the male followed instantly by a dry clicking from the female.
Voice
Duets in which the male gives a clear, pure whistle, a long hooo or a two-note hoo-eet, and the female answers at once with a dry, rapid clicking such as tik-tik-tik-tik, like stones being knocked together. The combination of whistle and click series is diagnostic. In alarm it gives hard, harsh rattles.
Recording: Paul Lenrumé — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
22–23 cm. Head, back, wings and tail are glossy blue-black, with a long white stripe along the wing. The underparts are pure white, without any pink or rufous wash, and contrast sharply with the black upperparts. The bill is heavy, black and hooked, and the eye is dark. The sexes are nearly alike; the female is slightly duller. Juveniles are browner above and pale buff with fine barring below. It moves low through dense cover but regularly perches at the edge of reeds or papyrus.
Confusion species
Tropical Boubou Laniarius major, which occurs in the same area but mainly in drier woodland, usually has a pink or buff wash on the breast and flanks and sings a different duet. Southern Boubou Laniarius ferrugineus has rufous flanks. Black-Backed Puffback Dryoscopus cubla is smaller, with a red eye and a white rump pad, and lives mainly in the canopy.
Habitat
Dense riverine forest, papyrus and reed fringes, thicket-covered islands in swamps and floodplains, and dense growth along rivers and channels. On the Angolan coast also in coastal forest, mangrove and rank scrub. It forages low in cover and on the ground, taking insects and other small animals.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region mainly in the north-west: the Okavango Delta and the Linyanti and Chobe in northern Botswana, the Kavango and Zambezi Regions of Namibia, western Zambia (upper Zambezi and the Barotse floodplain) and the Zambezi above Victoria Falls in the far west of Zimbabwe, and further in Angola, both in the south-east and along the west coast. Beyond the region along the Atlantic coast from Cameroon to the lower Congo.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Year-round. The best places are the banks of the Okavango, the Chobe and the Zambezi at Kasane and Katima Mulilo; a boat trip along papyrus fringes often gives good views. Listen for the combination of whistle and click series and watch the edge of the reeds, where the birds show briefly.
Conservation status
Not threatened; locally common in suitable habitat. The species depends on riverine vegetation and swamps and disappears where banks are cleared or water levels fall permanently, but it is numerous in the great wetlands of the region.
Scientific name
Laniarius bicolor | (Hartlaub, 1857)
Hartlaub described the species in 1857 as Dryoscopus bicolor; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Laniarius was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. Laniarius comes from the Latin lanius, 'butcher', the same root as for the true shrikes — for the hooked bill and the habit of impaling prey on thorns. bicolor is Latin for 'two-coloured', for the black-and-white plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Gabon.