Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 12:23 am
ID help for Cameroon cisticola
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….
David J. Ringer
on 13 Dec 2007 at 8:20 pm 1.Old Horsetail Snake said …
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……
on 18 Dec 2007 at 4:44 pm 2.david said …
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.