Lavender Waxbill Glaucestrilda caerulescens Scientific name definitions

10 cm; 8–15·1 g. Male is mostly pearly grey above and below; black streak from lores through eye , red rump and uppertail-coverts , outermost pair of rectrices dark grey, central rectrices crimson , rest of rectrices dark grey with crimson on outer web; belly and flanks sooty grey, flanks with a few white spots (few individuals), undertail-coverts red; iris dark brown, eyering black; bill pinkish-grey, tip, upper and lower ridges and cutting edges black; legs black. Female resembles male, but lower belly and flanks dark grey. Juvenile is paler than female, lacks black eyestripe, has rump, tail and undertail-coverts less bright red, flanks lack white spots.

Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, N Guinea and S Mali (upper R Niger) E to N Nigeria, N Cameroon, S Chad and N Central African Republic. Introduced in Hawaiian Is.

Thickets and thicket edge, extending into woodland, rank patches on more open land, rocky hillsides, at margins of cultivation.

Diet includes small seeds of grasses, small fruits, and flowers (pollen and nectar), and also some insects. Forages in pairs and small groups; joins mixed flocks with other estrildids.

Calls  high, piping, at constant pitch and thin in tone, "see-see-squee-see"; female contact call "tseeht-tseet", male "seet-tyoo" with accent and highest pitch at beginning of second note.

Not globally threatened. Locally common to scarce. Outside normal range recorded also in Liberia, where said to have been rare on Mt Nimba during 1967/68. In Ivory Coast, where frequent in N, several seen in S (Abidjan) in 1987 considered probably to have escaped from captivity.