Bird of the week: sooty chat
These chats are solitary, in pairs or in groups of six or more birds. Perching on termite mounds, bush, fences or telephone wires.
The sooty chat is a variation of the common resident, the ant-eating chat is found over most of South Africa’s interior, but absent along most of the coastal belt and lowveld.
They like open grassland, rolling grassy hills, Kalahari sandveld, shrubby semi-desert with termite mounds and dongas. They like ants mostly in winter, termites, beetles, bugs, caterpillars, millipedes and fruit.
These chats are solitary, in pairs or in groups of six or more birds. Perching on termite mounds, bush, fences or telephone wires.
They fly with a blur of wings, hovering, swerving and dropping to the ground or perch. Raising their tails after landing they rarely flick their wings. Foraging is done by hopping or running on the ground.
They call in flight or when perched giving a short sharp pee-ik or piek, also mixed whistles and grating notes.
Breeding takes place from August to November. The nest is a bowl of dry grass and fine rootlets in a chamber at the end of a self excavated burrow, using their bill to dig and feet to remove the soil.
Site selected is usually in the wall of a donga or stream bank. Usually, three white spotted eggs are laid.
The incubation period is 14 to 15 days and nestling for 15 to 18 days. The young are fed by parents and helpers for seven days after leaving the nest.
The Xhosa name is Isanzwili and in Afrikaans die swartpiek.
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