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Babbling Starling | Neocichla gutturalis
Witvleugelspreeuw | Estornino Gorjinegro
Babbling Starling is a little-known, stocky starling of miombo woodland that behaves more like a babbler than a starling: noisy parties forage together on the ground and in low trees. Its range consists of two separate parts, in the south-western highlands of Angola and around the Luangwa Valley and northern Malawi.
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Voice
Groups give a loud, rolling, babbling chatter mixed with whistled and scratchy notes, recalling babblers; also a clear cheep or chweet. It calls a lot, also in flight.
Recording: Thibaut Chansac — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
21–23 cm, sturdy, with a fairly short tail and strong legs. The upperparts are grey-brown, the underparts pale brownish white. A black patch on the throat and upper breast is striking. The primaries are dark with a white base, which flashes as a broad white wing patch in flight but is largely hidden on the perched bird. The eye is pale yellow. The sexes are alike; juveniles have a less distinct throat patch. It lives in groups of four to ten birds that move over the ground and along trunks.
Confusion species
Arrow-Marked Babbler Turdoides jardineii lives in similar groups and makes a similar racket, but is browner, with pale arrowhead spots, an orange to red eye and no black throat or white wing patch. The female Violet-Backed Starling Cinnyricinclus leucogaster is brown with densely streaked underparts and feeds in the canopy. The combination of black throat, white wing patch in flight, ground foraging and babbling group chorus makes the species unmistakable.
Habitat
Open miombo woodland with Brachystegia and Julbernardia, often where the ground layer is sparse, burnt or closely grazed, and wooded edges of dambos. It forages much on the ground and also climbs trunks and branches in search of insects; it also eats fruit. It nests in tree holes.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region in two separate parts: the nominate form in the south-western highlands of Angola (Huíla, around Lubango, Caconda and Matala among other places), and the subspecies angusta in eastern Zambia (Luangwa Valley and the Lundazi area) and northern Malawi (Vwaza Marsh and surroundings). Beyond the region only in south-western Tanzania.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Year-round. Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve in Malawi is the best-known site; in Zambia it is seen around Lundazi and in Luambe NP, in Angola in the miombo around Lubango and Caconda. Listen in miombo for a babbling group chorus and look for birds walking on the ground; the white wing patch gives them away only when they fly up.
Conservation status
Not threatened, but scarce, patchily distributed and poorly known. The species depends on intact miombo, which is declining throughout its range through clearance and charcoal production.
Scientific name
Neocichla gutturalis | (Bocage, 1871)
Bocage described the species in 1871 as Crateropus gutturalis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Neocichla was introduced in 1876 by Sharpe. Neocichla comes from the Greek neos, 'new', and kikhlē, 'thrush' — a 'new thrush', as the species was first described as a thrush-like babbler. gutturalis is Latin for 'of the throat', from guttur, 'throat' — for the black throat patch. The specimen the first description was based on came from Huíla, Angola.