Tanzania Seedeater Crithagra melanochroa Scientific name definitions

15 cm. Medium-sized, stout-billed finch with heavily streaked underparts. Has head and upperparts dark olive-brown, streaked darker on mantle and back, uppertail-coverts like back but edged paler; forehead sometimes with some white streaks or flecks; lores and face dark brown or blackish, short, narrow whitish supercilium, short whitish subocular stripe or patch, and small buffish-white patch at base of bill and on lower ear-coverts; tail dark brown, finely edged olive; upperwing dark brown or blackish-brown, median and greater coverts with blackish centres, browner edges and paler buff-brown tips, alula, primary coverts and flight-feathers edged olive-brown, tertials edged deep olive-brown and fringed paler; chin and throat whitish, underparts buffish or pale buff, broadly streaked dark brown, streaks continuing narrowly to lower flanks; iris dark sepia-brown; upper mandible dark sepia-brown, paler dull yellowish or pale flesh cutting edges and lower mandible; legs dull dark brown to blackish. Distinguished from C. burtoni by smaller size, lack of white on forehead, of bright greenish-yellow edges on flight-feathers, and of pale wingbars. Sexes alike. Juvenile undescribed.

Iringa and Njombe Highlands, in S Tanzania.

Montane forest and bushland between 1500 m and 3000 m.

Resident.

Diet not well known; mostly seeds of grasses, flowering plants, shrubs and trees, also fruits. Forages mostly in low to middle levels of trees, sometimes also in canopy of trees and on ground; unobtrusive. Singly, in small groups and in family parties.

No information.

Not globally threatened (Least Concern). Restricted range species: present in Tanzania-Malawi Mountains EBA. Fairly common within small global range; easily overlooked. Present on Mt Rungwe, N & S of R Little Ruaha near Iringa, and S of Mtandika; fairly common at 1700 m in Chita Forest and at 1800 m in Kigogo Forest and Dabaga; not uncommon also at Mufundi and in Kisinga Rugaro Forest Reserve, in W Ndundulus. Range not fully determined; may occur also in forests near Zambian and Malawian borders. Although this species is present within the large Udzungwa Mountains National Park and in several forest reserves, elsewhere it is potentially at risk through clearance of habitat for agriculture, development of plantations and selective logging and firewood-cutting; as a consequence its range and numbers are thought to be decreasing.