ID help for Cameroon cisticola

2007 December 12
by David J. Ringer

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — When I was in Cameroon this summer, I encountered a small brown bird on the Ndop Plain in Northwest Province. Its song seemed the only distinctive thing about it, though at the time I noted two dark bars on its undertail and pink legs.

By reading descriptions of songs in Birds of Western Africa, I guessed that the bird might be a Whistling Cisticola, Cisticola lateralis.

Here’s a brief video clip, which includes three songs. Can anyone familiar with Western African birds offer an opinion? I apologize in advance for the shaky video….

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2 Responses leave one →
  1. 2007 December 13

    Golly, if I didn’t know any better I would guess it was a Peanut Ground Thrush Grumper. Some of the notes are suspect, though. Maybe it’s a relative of the Grumper, say a Maiden.
    One the other hand, I see three warts……

  2. 2007 December 18
    david permalink

    Ummm, thanks for trying…. :)

    BirdForum member Xenospiza compared the sound clip with cisticola songs on Claude Chappuis’ African Bird Sounds CDs and pronounces it “a pretty good match for Whistling“.

    I’d like to get a copy of those CDs, but I don’t have that kind of money.

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