Grey-backed Sparrow-Lark - BirdForum Opus

Photo by Max Holdt
Windhoek, Namibia

Eremopterix verticalis

Identification

12–13 cm; a small finch-like lark
Male

Black head
White cheeks

Distribution

Southern Africa:
Western Africa: found in Angola, Zaire
Eastern Africa: Zambia
Southern Africa: Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa and KwaZulu-Natal

Female
Photo by charelli
Namibia, September 2012

Taxonomy

Sibspecies

Eremopterix verticalis has four subspecies:^[1]

E. v. damarensis

Coastal Angola to Namibia, western Zambia and north-western Botswana

E. v. harti

Southern Zambia

E. v. khama

North-eastern Botswana to Zambia and Zimbabwe

E. v. verticalis

Western and central South Africa, south-eastern Botswana and extreme southern Zimbabwe

Habitat

Juvenile male
Photo by CollinBax
Durbanville, Cape Town, South Africa, February 2009

Semi-desert and arid shrub-land, grassland, savanna and cereal crops.

Behaviour

Diet

Their diet consists mostly of seeds and grass shoots, with the addition of some insects.

References

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2014. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: Version 6.9., with updates to August 2014. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Hockey, PAR, WRJ Dean, and PG Ryan, eds. 2005. Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa. 7th ed. Cape Town: John Voelcker Bird Book Fund. ISBN 978-0620340533
Sinclair, I and P Ryan. 2003. Birds of Africa South of the Sahara. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0691118154
Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved June 2015)

List of references

Recommended Citation

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Grey-backed Sparrow-Lark. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Grey-backed_Sparrow-Lark

External Links

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