Red-Winged Prinia | Prinia erythroptera

Voice

A loud, clear series of even notes, tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi or pee-pee-pee, from a raised twig or grass stem, at times as a duet. The contact call is a soft chup, and when alarmed a dry rattle. Outside the song period it is silent and seldom detected.

Identification

12–13 cm, with a long graduated tail. Breeding plumage is grey-brown above with a greyer crown and nape; the edges of the flight feathers are bright chestnut and form a rufous wing panel that is also conspicuous in flight. The tail feathers have a dark subterminal mark and a pale tip. The underparts are off-white to pale buff, warmer on the flanks. There is a faint pale loral mark but no clear supercilium. The iris is orange-yellow to pale brown, the bill dark with a pale lower mandible, the legs pink. Outside the breeding season the upperparts are warmer rufous-brown and the tail longer. The sexes are alike. It clambers low through the grass, the tail often cocked.

Confusion species

Tawny-Flanked Prinia Prinia subflava also has rufous edges to the flight feathers, though less pronounced, and has a clear pale supercilium and tawny flanks; it is far commoner and also lives in gardens and field edges. Singing Cisticola Cisticola cantans has a rufous wing panel and a rufous crown, a shorter tail and a different, whistled voice. Red-Faced Cisticola Cisticola erythrops has a rufous face and no wing panel. The combination of the long tail, the rufous wing panel and the lack of a supercilium points to Red-Winged Prinia.

Habitat

Tall, rank grass and low bushes beneath the trees in moist miombo and other broadleaved woodland, especially in patches not burnt every year, also at the edges of vleis and in abandoned fields with regrowth. It forages low in the grass for insects, in pairs or family parties, and is unobtrusive outside the breeding season.

Range and movements

Within the region scarce and local in the east: southern and central Malawi, northern and central Mozambique (including the plains around Gorongosa), locally in eastern and north-eastern Zambia and very locally in eastern Zimbabwe. Beyond the region from Senegal east across the Sahel fringe and Sudan savanna to Ethiopia, and from Kenya south through Tanzania; the subspecies rhodoptera occurs in the region.

• Resident
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

How and when to look

Present year-round, but mainly found in the rains, from November to March, when the birds are singing. Search tall grass under the trees on the plains around Gorongosa or unburnt grassy patches in the woodland of southern Malawi. Listen for the clear tchi-tchi-tchi of a bird singing on a grass stem; once it drops into the grass it is usually lost from view.

Conservation status

Not threatened across its large African range. Within the region scarce and poorly known; the species is sensitive to annual grass fires and the conversion of woodland to cultivation, and appears to depend on patches of long-undisturbed tall grass.

Scientific name

Prinia erythroptera | (Jardine, 1849) (GBIF: Heliolais erythropterus)

Jardine described the species in 1849 as Drymoica erythroptera; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Prinia was introduced in 1821 by Horsfield. Prinia comes from prinya, the Javanese name for Prinia familiaris, the prinia of that island. erythroptera comes from the Greek eruthros, 'red', and pteron, 'wing' — for the rufous wings. The specimen the first description was based on came from West Africa; the type is from Ghana.