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Dusky Indigobird | Vidua funerea
Groene staalvink | Viuda Sombría
The Dusky Indigobird is a small black brood parasite of woodland edges and rank growth, which has its eggs raised only by the African Firefinch. The male learns the song of that host and wears it like a calling card: anyone wanting to separate the indigobirds must above all listen.
Voice
The male sings from a fixed song post a mixture of its own scratchy and rattling notes, chirr-chirr-chik, interspersed with accurate imitations of the calls and song of the African Firefinch, such as a high, fast trilling pit-pit-pit-pit and a soft weet-weet. The begging calls of the host's young are copied as well.
Recording: Lynette Rudman — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm; the breeding male has no elongated tail, so length with and without tail is virtually the same. The breeding male is wholly black with a dull blue to greenish-blue gloss, brownish-black wings and tail, a whitish bill and pinkish-red to orange-red legs. The female and non-breeding male are sparrow-like: brown-streaked above, with a dark crown stripe, pale median stripe and supercilium, and off-white below; the bill is pale pink and the legs pink to orange. Juveniles are plainer warm brown, without clear head stripes.
Confusion species
Village Indigobird (Vidua chalybeata) has a red or orange-red bill and red legs in the male and a clear blue gloss; it follows the Red-Billed Firefinch. Purple Indigobird (Vidua purpurascens) has a white bill but whitish to pale lilac legs and a purple gloss; it follows Jameson's Firefinch. Zambezi Indigobird (Vidua codringtoni) has a green gloss and follows the Red-Throated Twinspot. Females and juveniles are almost inseparable from one another; females of Pin-Tailed Whydah (Vidua macroura) are also very similar but have a red bill. The mimicked song and the host present settle it.
Habitat
Edges of forest and riverine woodland, rank thickets, densely grown grassy verges and overgrown fields and gardens in moist woodland country; wherever the African Firefinch lives, and so mainly in dense, grassy undergrowth. It feeds on the ground on grass seeds. The male holds a calling and display area with one or a few fixed song posts on a dead branch.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the east of the region: Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, Eswatini, eastern and central Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Angola, where the blacker form nigerrima occurs; absent from the dry western half. Beyond the region from West Africa to Ethiopia and south through East Africa, everywhere together with its host.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In summer find a male singing on a bare branch at a woodland edge and listen for the woven-in imitations: if the trilling repertoire of the African Firefinch comes through, it is this species. Then check bill and legs: white bill and pinkish-red legs. A male uses the same song post for years, so returning pays off.
Conservation status
Not threatened; common to fairly common, but often overlooked because of the secretive behaviour of females and juveniles. Its numbers track those of the African Firefinch and are therefore stable wherever dense undergrowth along woodland edges survives.
Scientific name
Vidua funerea | (de Tarragon, 1847)
De Tarragon described the species in 1847 as Fringilla funerea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Vidua was introduced in 1816 by Cuvier, GLCFD. Vidua is the Latin word for 'widow'. funerea is Latin for 'funereal, of mourning' — for the male's sombre black plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.