White-bellied Bustard Eupodotis senegalensis Scientific name definitions

One of the most widely distributed bustards in Africa, although its range is broken down into four main regions and five subspecies. These encompass West Africa and the Sahel, from southwest Mauritania to central Sudan and Eritrea; the Horn of Africa and East Africa, from Ethiopia and Somalia to southern Tanzania; Central Africa, from southeastern Gabon south to Angola and western Zambia; and southern Africa from southeast Botswana to eastern South Africa. The White-bellied Bustard or, as it is better known in the southernmost part of the continent, the White-bellied Korhaan, is a fairly small and slender-bodied bustard, with a distinctive head pattern in males (much less so in females), and a grayish-blue neck, tawny-buff upperparts and tail, a tawny-colored breast, and white rest of underparts (fittingly!). In flight, the remiges are generally black with some whitish on the inner webs of the primaries, and contrasting tawny-buff upperwing-coverts. The different races vary to some extent in size, but more so in general coloration, especially of the upperparts, but also of the head, neck, and breast, mainly the degree and distribution of black on the head or gray on the neck, or both. Some authorities consider the southern subspecies, barrowii and mackenziei, to represent a separate species, the Barrow’s Bustard. White-bellied Bustards occur largely in open savannas, grasslands, bush bordering cultivation, and thorn scrub, generally below 1,500 m, but locally to 2,000 m in East Africa. Despite its large range, the species’ general biology and ecology are not well known, with most of our cumulative knowledge based solely on incidental and anecdotal observations, and almost no dedicated studies, perhaps in part due to the fact that this bustard is relatively easily overlooked, but for its rather loud, sonorous, and nasal advertising call.