Hi Dean,
I'm surprised no-one has responded to this thread as your photos are pretty good. For what it's worth, it looks good for Zitting to me, although I've only seen it once or twice on my visits to Africa (seven visits, a week or so at a time, no long holidays, unfortunately). I think the tail is too long for Wing-snapping (Ayre's) and the head seems to be streaked, so Pale-crowned should definitely be out. But Desert would be a possibility where you are, and the tail in the clearest photo - the second - doesn't show a clear black subterminal band above the white tip which should be there for Zitting, but not for Desert.
Zitting is a very widespread bird, and the only cisticola in Japan where I live, but common and I see them often around my local birding spots. But looking at past BirdForumthreads, there seems to be some regional variation in colouring, and there are obviously a lot more confusion species where you are.
There is a site which you may know called
Xeno-Canto where people post bird songs. Unfortunately, I'm not at all sure that all the IDs are correct, and some people post recordings which can only be described as junk, which can make trying to find a good one frustrating. I listened to some of the
recordings identified as Zitting, and the ones I found didn't fit my own experience.
The calls may be different in different regions, I suppose. However, I have taken photos of Zitting perched on reeds and plants of different kinds over ten years or so, but I have never heard a perched bird make any sound, and never heard the bird make any noise other than the two sounds described below, although some of the Xeno-Canto recordings seem to be different.
So, I attach a recording of a Japanese Zitting from a few weeks ago, in the breeding season. The call fits well the description of the call in Sasol's Southern African Birds guide. There is a sharp zit repeated, and then a chit repeated, according to Sasol. The zit is high-pitched and strong, and an English person such as myself would probably transcribe the chit as 'tsk tsk' which is how in England we write the clicking sound you make with the tongue when you disapprove of something.
Here in Japan, the Zitting Cisticola seems to make the sharp zit sound as it rises in display, and the tsk sound as it descends again, so the zit can be repeated sometimes a few hundred times, but the tsk is usually repeated many fewer times.
In the background of this recording, you can hear the pwee of a Little Ringed Plover four times (9, 18, 24, 36), and the chew-chew-chew-che-che-che of a Lesser Cuckoo eight times - 8, 11, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23, 26 and then right at the end - 52, just after a few caws from a crow.There's also a few cheeps from Eurasian Tree Sparrow, and near the end a few background zees from Long-tailed Tits from 37 or so.
There is a series of about 80 zits starting right at the beginning of the recording (0-32), then a few tsks (32-36), then a few more zits (37-38) and a few more tsks (39-47).
I hope this helps. Anyway, next time you can listen for the call. I think it's fairly distinctive, even among cisticolas, once you have heard it clearly and know what it is.
Just as a note: I have a bad memory for sounds, but in the last couple of years I have started using a small Olympus voice recorder,
VN-8000PC (now superceded by the other models, I think) to record sounds. It doesn't work too well with a lot of background noise, or when the bird you want to record is further away than another bird you do not want to record, but my aural ability has increased greatly as a result. These machines are not so expensive.
If anyone reading this thread has advice on a recorder which is particularly good for recording bird song, please let us know.
