Crimson Seedcracker Pyrenestes sanguineus Scientific name definitions

14–15 cm; 16·9-26·6 g. Male has head and neck down onto breast and flanks crimson-red, uppertail-coverts, central rectrices and outer edges of lateral rectrices red, rest of plumage brown, undertail-coverts sooty brown; iris dark brown, eyering grey in front of and behind eye, white above and below eye (conspicuous and swollen in breeding condition); bill thick, variably small, large or huge, black; legs brown. Female has red restricted to most of head and throat, and from rump to tail, with variable red flecking on sides of neck and on breast; rest of plumage more tawny-brown, wing blackish-brown with tawny edges of coverts; eyering grey. Juvenile is like female, but has entire head and throat tawny-brown, not red, and long uppertail-coverts rufous.

Gambia, S Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast.

Freshwater swamp-forest, tidal creeks, brushy growth along streams, low dense vegetation, scrub near rice fields, ponds in logged forest, and wet sedge (Cyperaceae) in open forest; visits suburban gardens. Lowlands.

Resident.

Seeds of sedges and rice. Feeds on or near ground. Forages in pairs, sometimes in small groups; occasionally associates with Spermophaga species.

Contact call during foraging a soft, hollow clicking "tsut…tsut". Courtship song long and melodious, variable, "titi-tsee-chiweeta-toy-ti-tseea", or squeaky song rising in pitch from first to fourth (loudest) note, then tailing off, "tee-ti-ti-teee, ti, tee".

Breeds in Sept, and juveniles seen also in Mar and Jul, in Gambia; in Liberia, nest-building in Jun–Aug, Oct and Nov and fledged young in Sept. Usually solitary nester, but sometimes groups of 8–10 pairs. Courting male displays on perch, holding long stem in bill, hopping up and down; also displays on ground, grass in bill, by turning in a circle, and both male and female hop up and down; in sexual flight, female flies in irregular and undulating circles 50 m in diameter and then back to swamp, male follows her and sings. Nest a ball-shaped structure with side entrance, made from dry fronds of ferns or dead leaves or a pile of dead reeds, lined with soft grass-heads, sited 1–3 m above water level or ground, under dense canopy of creepers and leaves. Clutch 3–4 eggs; incubation by both sexes, period 16 days; nestling skin dark blackish-red, sparse down on head and body, gape with three fleshy balls and a smaller papilla between middle and lower balls, top ball yellow, lower ones whiter to pale yellow, all bordered black, palate pale with five black spots (posterior pair small), a band around tongue and a black crescent on lower mandible; nestling period 24 days; young independent 10 days after leaving nest.

Not globally threatened. Uncommon to locally common. Rare in Gambia, where thought to be threatened by loss of riverbank swamp-forest habitat, which being replaced by farm plots and banana fields. Elsewhere, e.g. Liberia, seems to benefit from logging and small-scale forest loss.