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Gray-olive Greenbul Phyllastrephus cerviniventris Scientific name definitions

Lincoln Fishpool and Joseph A. Tobias
Version: 1.0 — Published March 4, 2020
Text last updated January 1, 2005

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Originally Appeared in

HBW Alive

Field Identification

c. 18 cm; male 28·5–33 g, female 23·5 g. Medium-sized greenbul with striking orange or yellow eyes and pale legs. Lores are pale grey, side of face and ear-coverts brownwish olive-grey with some indistinct paler streaking; indistinct pale broken eyering, darker line on lores and extending behind eye on some individuals; top of head and upper­parts olive-grey, tinged brown, paler on lower back and rump; uppertail-coverts and tail rufous; wings olive-brown; throat pale whitish-buff, breast brownish olive-grey, flanks washed tawny, belly creamy buff, undertail-coverts pale tawny; iris orange, orange-yellow, golden-brown, salmon-pink or yellow, red rim; upper mandible dark horn, horn-grey, brownish or pinkish, lower mandible pale horn or whitish, pale cutting edges; legs pinkish-flesh, greyish-white or brownish-white. Distinguished from P. strepitans and P. terrestris by eye and leg colours; from P. cabanisi and P. fischeri by smaller size, duller throat, pale legs. Sexes alike; female on average smaller than male, possibly also with eye paler and lacking darker (red or reddish) outer ring of male. Juvenile is browner, less olive, above, secondary coverts edged tawny; eye pale grey, becoming greenish-grey.

Systematics History

Birds from SE DRCongo described as race schoutedeni on basis of darker and greyer underparts and less rufous tail feathers, but not satisfactorily distinguishable. Monotypic.

Subspecies

Monotypic.

Distribution

C & S Kenya, N & E Tanzania, extreme SE DRCongo, N & C Zambia, extreme E Angola, much of Malawi and parts of N Mozambique.

Habitat

Riparian thicket, gallery forest, groundwater forest, bamboo thicket and moist evergreen forest; from 400 m to 1900 m.

Movement

Resident.

Diet and Foraging

Arthropods, including beetles (Coleoptera) and grasshoppers (Orthoptera); also some fruit. Occurs in pairs or small groups; has been recorded in mixed flocks with P. strepitans. Shy and unobtrusive. Forages in low tangles of dense vegetation, up to 4 m; gleans from leaves and bark, particularly of fallen logs, from the ground and, occasionally, in aerial sallies. Flicks wings and tail.

Sounds and Vocal Behavior

Calls include rasping, nasal “yekk-yekk-yekk”, “ke-wek, wek wek wark” or continuous “zer-zer-zer-zer”, a repeated “cherkiyeck” and a rapid “chewki-chiki-chew-chew”.

Breeding

Nesting recorded in Dec in Kenya, Sept–Nov and Apr (and in breeding condition in Oct) in Zambia, and Apr–May, Aug and Oct–Nov in Malawi; birds in breeding condition and juvenile in Apr in Mozambique. Nest an untidy, fairly deep cup, made of fine rootlets, dead leaves and moss, lined with rootlets, external diameter 10 cm, external depth 5·5 cm. Clutch 2 eggs; no information available on incubation and nestling periods; fledged young out of nest fed by both parents.

Conservation Status

Conservation status on Birdlife LC Least Concern
Not globally threatened. Generally scarce; may be locally fairly common. Known to occur in a number of protected areas.
Distribution of the Gray-olive Greenbul - Range Map
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  • Year-round
  • Migration
  • Breeding
  • Non-Breeding
Distribution of the Gray-olive Greenbul

eBird and Macaulay Library

Recommended Citation

Fishpool, L. and J. A. Tobias (2020). Gray-olive Greenbul (Phyllastrephus cerviniventris), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.gyogre1.01
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