Monteiro's Bushshrike Malaconotus monteiri Scientific name definitions

25–26·5 cm. A large bush-shrike with a very heavy, hooked bill. Nominate race has lores and small but distinct area around eye white, the white sometimes extending backwards as well-delineated super­ciliary stripe and with shorter, upcurving subocular stripe; head dark grey, merging into olive on mantle and sharply delineated from bright lemon-yellow throat; rest of upperparts, including tail, bright olive-green, uppertail-coverts with narrow yellow tips, rectrices tipped pale yellow; upperwing olive-green, tertials, greater coverts and most median coverts broadly tipped pale yellow; underparts brilliant yellow, breast more or less suffused with tawny-orange, flanks olive-green (largely concealed beneath spreading yellow belly feathers); underside of remiges shiny dark grey with broad pale yellow inner edges and bases, underside of tail olive-grey; iris greenish-ochre or bluish-grey; bill black; legs slate-blue. Differs from very similar M. blanchoti mainly in having eyes dark grey (not yellow), pale face patch more extensive. Sexes alike. Juvenile undescribed. Race perspicillatus very poorly known, type specimen has heavier bill and is paler yellow below than nominate, the breast without orange wash.

Editor's Note: This article requires further editing work to merge existing content into the appropriate Subspecies sections. Please bear with us while this update takes place.

Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

In Angola, inhabits montane and submontane riverine, gallery and coffee forests and secondary scrub along the escarpment, and may extend into lowland forest; lusher lower seaward slopes (of Mt Njelo, S of Gabela, in Cuanza Sul) where forest merges with abandoned and regenerating shade coffee plantations; degraded secondary forest, old coffee plantations and primary forest at Kumbira Primero, near Conda (Cuanza Sul). In Cameroon, found in primary montane forest at 1000–1450 m.

Presumably sedentary.

No information.

Call of one individual duetting with M. gladiator was a mournful whistle of five notes without inflections at end, repeated five times; probably indistinguishable from voices of M. gladiator and M. blanchoti. Makes “klip-klip” snapping or rattling with bill.

No information.

Not globally threatened. Near Threatened. Restricted-range species: present in Cameroon Mountains EBA and Western Angola EBA. Very poorly known; elusive and formerly thought to be very rare. Acquisition of knowledge hampered by difficulty in distinguishing it from M. blanchoti  (2 Mills, M.S.L. (2010). Angola’s central scarp forests: patterns of bird diversity and conservation threats. Biodiversity and Conservation. 19(7): 1883–1903. Close ). In Angola, six or seven historical specimens and a few sight records up to 1957, from R Dande near Luanda, Dondo, Mucoso, N’dalatando, Gabela, ‘Bucaso’ (perhaps Buçaco), Quitondo and Canjala (12° S); in 2001–2003 and 2005, in Cuanza Sul, found to be locally surprisingly common in Kumbira Forest, on Mt Njelo (near Conda), where several heard calling simultaneously and one photographed, in near-pristine forest and degraded secondary scrub, and in 2005 reported as widespread, if uncommon, from R Dande S to Assango, Tondo and Gungo (11°50’ S). Records from Mt Moco, Quipeio and Chitau thought to relate to M. blanchoti (2 Mills, M.S.L. (2010). Angola’s central scarp forests: patterns of bird diversity and conservation threats. Biodiversity and Conservation. 19(7): 1883–1903. Close ). In Namibia, an individual thought to be of nominate race of present species collected at Okombambi (R Cunene valley) in 1963. In Cameroon, no records on well-worked Mt Cameroon since 1894, when type specimen of race perspicillatus collected (in Buea); individual with characters of present species seen in 1992 in same tree as M. gladiator on Mt Kupé, where one was glimpsed in 1997 on Max’s Trail; one or two seen at 1250 m at L Edib, in Bakossi Mts, in 1997. Recent records from Cameroon perhaps best considered unconfirmed (2 Mills, M.S.L. (2010). Angola’s central scarp forests: patterns of bird diversity and conservation threats. Biodiversity and Conservation. 19(7): 1883–1903. Close ). Specimen, now lost, said to have been obtained in Kakamega Forest, in SW Kenya, in 1932; individual attributed to this species obtained at Kanzenze, in E DRCongo, in 1905. Widespread destruction of forest in Angola has doubtless compromised survival prospects of this bush-shrike, which seems always to have been thinly distributed. Kumbira Forest is now the major stronghold for this and other threatened forest endemics; during 1989–2010, forest cover here increased slightly, but 45·5% of original forest was lost (3 Cáceres, A., Melo, M., Barlow, J., Cardoso, P., Maiato, F. and Mills, M.S. (2014). Threatened birds of the Angolan Central Escarpment: distribution and response to habitat change at Kumbira Forest. Oryx. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0030605313001415. Close ).