Red-faced crombec

Sylvietta whytii

Photo by Glen Tepke (Mango Verde)

Common name:
red-faced-crombec (en); rabicurta-de-faces-vermelhas (pt); crombec à face rousse (fr); sylvieta de cara roja (es); rotzügel-sylvietta (de)


Taxonomy:
Order Passeriformes
Family Sylviidae


Range:
This African species is found in East Africa, from southern Ethiopia and Sudan, through Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and into Zimbabwe and Mozambique.


Size:
These birds are 8-9 cm long and weigh 9-11 g.


Habitat:
The red-faced crombec is mostly found in sub-tropical and tropical dry scrublands and miombo woodlands, but also in other dry forests, sub-tropical and tropical moist mountain forests and in heavily degraded patches of former forests.


Diet:
They mainly feed on invertebrates, plucking scale insects, caterpillars, spiders and small worms from twigs and branches.


Breeding:
Red-faced crombecs breed in August-December. The nest is a hanging pouch made of fine bark strips, dead leaves, lichens, seed pods and flowers, bound together with spider webs. It is typically suspended between a forked twig on the edge of a bare tree. There the female lays 1-3 eggs, which she mostly incubates alone for 13-14 days. The chicks are fed by both parents and fledge 14-17 days after hatching.


Conservation:
IUCN status - LC (Least Concern)
This species has a very large breeding range and is described as locally fairly common. The population is suspected to be in decline owing to the destruction of miombo woodlands for agriculture.