Cape Batis

The Cape batis (''Batis capensis'') is a small, stout insect-eating passerine bird in the wattle-eye family. It is endemic to the Afromontane forests of southern Africa.

Taxonomy

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Cape batis in his ''Ornithologie'' based on a specimen collected from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He used the French name ''Le gobe-mouche du Cap de Bonne Espérance'' and the Latin ''Muscicapa Bonae Spei''. The two stars (**) at the start of the section indicates that Brisson based his description on the examination of a specimen. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his ''Systema Naturae'' for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the Cape batis. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name ''Muscicapa capensis'' and cited Brisson's work. The specific name ''capensis'' denotes the Cape of Good Hope. The species is now placed in the genus ''Batis'' that was introduced by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1833.

Six subspecies are recognised.
* ''B. c. sola'' Lawson, 1964 – northern Malawi
* ''B. c. dimorpha'' (Shelley, 1893) – central to southern Malawi, and Mount Namuli in Mozambique, Clements splits this into a distinct species, the Malawi batis
* ''B. c. kennedyi'' Smithers & Paterson, 1956 – western to central Zimbabwe
* ''B. c. erythrophthalma'' Swynnerton, 1907 – Eastern Highlands in Zimbabwe and Mozambique
* ''B. c. hollidayi'' Clancey, 1952 – Waterberg, Soutpansberg, northern Drakensberg and southern Lebombos in South Africa and Mozambique
* ''B. c. capensis'' (Linnaeus, 1766) – Western Cape to Lesotho and upland KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Description

The Cape batis is strikingly patterned. The adult male has a grey crown, black eye mask and white throat. Its back is brown, with a black rump and tail and rufous wings. The underparts are white with a broad black breast band and rufous flanks. The female and juvenile plumages differ in that the breast band is narrower and rufous, not black, and there is a small rufous patch on the throat. Their rufous wings and flanks distinguish them from other ''Batis'' species in the region.

The males of the two Malawian subspecies (''B. c. dimorpha'' and ''B. c. sola'') differ in having colder tones to the upper part and flank plumages (lacking any rufous or olive), besides having shorter bills, and are sometimes separated as the Malawi batis (''Batis dimorpha''). The population of Mount Namuli may represent a third subspecies of this northerly taxon.

The song is typically a triple whistle ''cherra-warra-warra'' or ''foo-foo-foo''.

Distribution and habitat

It is resident in cool coastal forests, moist evergreen mountain forests and wooded gorges. It is native to South Africa, Eswatini, the Matobos and Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and adjacent Mozambique, and the mountains of Malawi and those of adjacent Zambia and Mozambique.

Behaviour

Both the male and the female will aggressively defend their territory. When larger birds of prey, animals or humans approach, the bird will often perch conspicuously near the intruder and angrily protest audibly. The Cape batis hunts by flycatching, or by taking prey from the ground like a shrike. The nest is a small neat cup low in a tree or bush.

Gallery

File:AAB 1590 copy.jpg, Female Cape Batis Incubating

References

Further reading

* Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey and Warwick Tarboton, ''SASOL Birds of Southern Africa'' (Struik 2002)

External links

* Cape batis
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds

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Cape batis
Birds of Southern Africa
Cape batis
Cape batis