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White-Winged Black Tit | Melaniparus leucomelas
Rüppells mees | Carbonero Aliblanco
White-Winged Black Tit is the black tit of the northern miombo: a glossy black bird with a large white wing patch that occurs in the region only in Angola and northern Zambia. Where it meets Southern Black Tit, a good look at the undertail is needed.
Voice
Harsh and rattling, tsi-cher-cher-cher, and clear, repeated whistles, tee-woo tee-woo or chee-chee-chwee. The calls closely resemble those of Southern Black Tit and cannot reliably be told apart in the field.
Recording: Andrew Spencer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15 cm. The male is glossy blue-black with a large, solid white patch on the wing coverts and white edges to the secondaries and tertials. The undertail coverts are plain black and the tail has almost no white. The female is duller and greyer black. Bill black. Juveniles are brownish black with a yellowish wash to the wing patch. It lives in pairs or small groups, often with other species.
Confusion species
Southern Black Tit Melaniparus niger, which takes over in southern and eastern Zambia, has white-scalloped undertail coverts, white edges to the outer tail feathers and a less solid white wing patch. Carp's Tit Melaniparus carpi of arid south-western Angola is smaller and lives in thornveld and mopane, not miombo. Rufous-Bellied Tit Melaniparus rufiventris has a rufous belly and a grey back.
Habitat
Miombo and other broadleaved woodland, open woodland with large trees and the edges of gallery forest. It forages on trunks, branches and in the canopy for insects, often in mixed bird parties. Nests in a tree hole.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region in central, northern and eastern Angola and northern and north-western Zambia. Beyond, through southern DR Congo and western Tanzania, and in other subspecies across the savanna belt from Senegal to Ethiopia and Eritrea.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Year-round. In north-western Zambia (Mwinilunga) and on the Angolan plateau it moves with mixed parties in miombo. Where both this species and Southern Black Tit may occur, check the undertail coverts: plain black in White-Winged Black Tit, scalloped white in Southern Black Tit.
Conservation status
Not threatened; widespread and locally fairly common. Clearance of miombo for charcoal and farming reduces habitat locally.
Scientific name
Melaniparus leucomelas | (Rüppell, 1840) (GBIF: Parus leucomelas)
Rüppell described the species in 1840 as Parus leucomelas; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Melaniparus was introduced in 1850 by Bonaparte. Melaniparus combines the Greek melas, 'black', with Parus, Latin for 'tit' — for the largely black plumage of many species. leucomelas comes from the Greek leukos, 'white', and melas, 'black' — for this black tit with a white wing patch. The specimen the first description was based on came from Temben, Tigray, Ethiopia.