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Cape Robin
Cossypha caffra
-34.0811, 18.4741
Field Notes
Description:
The Cape Robin-Chat is 16–17 cm long. The adult’s upper-parts are grey, and the face sides in front of and behind the eye are blackish, separated from the crown by a white supercilium. The chin, throat, central breast, rump, under-tail coverts and outer tail feathers are orange, and the central tail feathers are greyish-brown. The belly is pale grey.
The black bill is short and straight, with a slightly down-curved upper mandible. The legs and feet are pinkish grey, and the eye is brown. The sexes are similar, but the juvenile is dark brown above and buff below, heavily marked with buff on the upperparts and grey-brown on the breast.
The Cape Robin-Chat has a harsh, low, trisyllabic alarm note "WA-dur-dra". The Afrikaans name for this species, “JAN Frederik” gives the rhythm of this call, if the syllables of the latter part are run together. The song consists of variable short passages of musical notes, always starts with low slurred whistle cherooo-weet-weet-weeeet.
Notes:
I have to confess that I am a near useless "twitcher" but these fellows pitched up when I wad digging foundations in the garden. Obviously awake to the prospect of an easy meal and had a whale of a time watching me turn over acres of dirt so that they could pick through the debris for nice tidbits.. :-)
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