Family Waxbills (Estrildidae)
Least Concern
Green-winged Pytilia (Pytilia melba)
Taxonomy
French: Beaumarquet melba German: Buntastrild Spanish: Estrilda melba
Other common names:
Melba Finch
Taxonomy:
Fringilla Melba
Linnaeus
, 1758,China; error = Luanda, Angola
.
Subspecies and Distribution
P. m. citerior
Strickland, 1853 – S Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and N Ivory Coast E to N Nigeria, Chad, W South Sudan, S Sudan and W Ethiopia.
P. m. jessei
Shelley, 1903 – NE Sudan, Eritrea, NE Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia.
P. m. soudanensis
(Sharpe, 1890) – SE South Sudan, C & S Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, and N & E Kenya S to N Tanzania.
P. m. belli
Ogilvie-Grant, 1907 – W Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, E DRCongo (Kivu) and W Tanzania.
P. m. percivali
van Someren, 1919 – C & SW Kenya and N & C Tanzania.
P. m. hygrophila
Irwin & Benson, 1967 – NE Zambia and N Malawi.
P. m. grotei
Reichenow, 1919 – NE Tanzania S to C Mozambique (lower R Zambezi) and S Malawi.
P. m. melba
(Linnaeus, 1758) – S Congo, W & SE DRCongo, Angola, Zambia (except NE) and SW Tanzania S to C Namibia, S Botswana, Zimbabwe, S Mozambique, N South Africa and E Swaziland.
Descriptive notes
12–14 cm; 12·8-18·4 g. Male nominate race has forehead, cheek, chin and throat red, lores and rest of head grey; upperparts and upperwing yellowish-green... read more
Voice
Contact call a downslurred "tseeoo", alarm call "wik"; other calls "tsit-tsit" or "spit spit". Song... read more
Habitat
Acacia (Acacia) thorn savanna and thickets, dry savanna woodland, edge of riparian forest... read more
Food and feeding
Small grass seeds, also termites (Isoptera) and pseudoscorpions (Pseudoscorpiones). In N South Africa exploits the grasses Panicum... read more
Breeding
Breeds in nearly all months, mainly Sept–Feb, in Senegal; in Aug, Sept and Mar in Nigeria and May and Jun in Ethiopia; breeds with... read more
Movements
Resident; some local seasonal movements, as indicated by changes in numbers in NE Nigeria and in... read more
Status and conservation
Not globally threatened. Uncommon to locally common. Mostly uncommon in NW of range (W of Nigeria), and uncommon in extreme NE; scarce to uncommon and local in much of E... read more
Has been suggested that red-lored citerior and grey-lored percivali represent two different species, but red-lored and grey-lored males intergrade across E Africa, and many intermediates occur. Race soudanensis intergrades with citerior in South Sudan, with jessei in Djibouti and with grotei in NE Tanzania. Proposed race clanceyi (described from Bahr el Ghazal, in South Sudan) treated as synonym of citerior; damarensis (from Windhoek, in W Namibia) and thamnophila (from Big Bend, on R Great Usutu, in E Swaziland) synonymized with nominate. A population in Djibouti with much yellow in plumage named as race flavicaudata (but no museum specimen), and apparently identical birds occur in N South Africa (Northern Cape Province), both possibly variants or additional races; a yellowish bird from Northern Cape appears to be a leucistic individual of nominate race, having mitochondrial sequence identical to that of others of this species in the region; further study required. Eight subspecies recognized.