Marsh Tchagra - BirdForum Opus

B. m. anchietae
Photo © by MikeB
North-central Angola

Alternative name: Blackcap Bush Shrike

Bocagia minuta

Tchagra minutus^[1]

Includes Anchieta's Tchagra

Identification

Female
Photo © by whiteheadedvulture
Manso Nkwanta, Ashanti, Ghana, 27 September 2021

Length 15-19 cm. The bill is strong and hooked.

Adult male: Long tail, chestnut back and wings and creamy-buff underparts, and black cap.

Adult female: Similar to the male, but with a white supercilium.

Distribution

Juvenile
Photo © by nkgray
Kasanka National Park, Zambia, 3 May 2011

Sub-Saharan Africa

Taxonomy

The Marsh Tchagra is sometimes placed in the monotypic genus Antichromus or included in genus Tchagra with the other Tchagras.

Bocagia minutus has three subspecies:

• B. m. minuta

• Sierra Leone east to South Sudan, eastern Sudan, and Ethiopia, south to western Kenya and northwestern Tanzania
• Has a black 'V' marking on the mantle and scapulars

• B. m. reichenowi

• Eastern and southern Tanzania, southern Malawi, eastern Zimbabwe and Mozambique

• B. m. anchietae

• Southern DRC to Angola, northern Zambia, south-western Tanzania and northern Malawi

B. m. reichenowi and B. m. anchietae are sometimes split as Anchieta's Tchagra; named after Portuguese explorer José Alberto de Oliveira Anchieta by his zoologist compatriot José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage in 1869.

Habitat

Rank grassland, bracken and sedges and shrubs associated with wetlands.

Behaviour

Diet includes large insects; forages near the ground in dense cover; sometimes hawks insects.

Breeding

Probably monogamous; territorial. The nest is a bulky, but neat cup of plant material and spider web, usually in a bush within a metre of the ground. One to three eggs are laid.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2017. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2017, with updates to August 2017. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Dickinson, EC, ed. 2003. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. 3rd ed., with updates to December 2007 (Corrigenda 7). Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0691117010
3. Gill, F and D Donsker (Eds). 2010. IOC World Bird Names (version 2.7). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Marsh Tchagra. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Marsh_Tchagra

External Links

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