Colours of Wildlife: Rattling Cisticola
Created | Updated Apr 8, 2018
Rattling Cisticola
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
I bring you yet another LBJ (Little Brown Job): a Rattling Cisticola, Cisticola chiniana. This birdie is pretty nondescript, being dull greyish-brown with just a hint of rufous on the crown, and with black stripes down its back and wings. It is indeed very similar to a vast number of additional species in the Cisticola genus, occurring throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. But it can easily be told from the others by its call. Its name gives a clue. The typical territorial call of this cisticola is three whistles followed by a rattle. Although the details vary, in that there are 'dialects' and individual variations, the pattern stays the same: three 'cheer-cheer-cheer'-notes, and then a short phrase usually including a rattle or churr or jumble of notes. This call can be given any time of year but is heard most in the breeding season. The calling bird perches conspicuously on a bush or tree. Perhaps even more frequently heard is this cisticila's alarm call: a penetrating 'chree-chree-chree'. The scolding bird will be lower down, still out in the open, directly confronting the intruder.
Ubiquitous Cisticolas
Rattling cisticolas are incredibly abundant. They're very closely related to the almost-as-abundant Neddickies. They don't form flocks, but live in pairs, defending small territories. In a good season in favourable habitat, a calling bird will be found every hundred yards or so, so there's pretty much nowhere to go where you won't hear their calls. In the late eighties I was part of a project to count individual birds in the Nylsvley Nature Reserve, and this species came out on top. This would likely be the same here in the Polokwane Game Reserve and also in the Bird Sanctuary, not to mention vast areas of rural land around town. Aside from South Africa, they also occur in our neighbour countries of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland, and from here on northwards as far as Ethiopia. They're absent from the rainforest belt, and from tropical West Africa. All in all there must be millions of them on this continent. But for some reason they don't seem to like towns and gardens; I've never seen any in the suburbs.
From its thin, curved bill, you can tell that this cisticola easts mainly insects, spiders and other small invertebrates. It hunts these amidst the grasses and shrubs, usually at a low level or even on the ground. It is quite a generalist, and can co-exist with numerous other small insect-eating bird species. It is typically found in scrubby, dry savannah, but can also live in well-developed woodland or in open grassland, provided at least some shrubs and trees are available. It is absent from the very dry woodland of the central Kalahari Desert. Birds remain resident in their territories; they're less often encountered in the winter, but that is because they call less and also conserve energy by being less active.
Even though these cisticolas are so abundant, they still are worth taking a good look at, and some of their habits are still not very well known. They will respond to the alarm calls of other birds, and to 'spishing', which is a method bird-watchers use to call (usually small) birds closer. That is by making 'spshhg-spshhh'- or 'ksss-ksss'-noises. These sound similar to alarm calls; bold birds will investigate, since it is always better to know exactly where a predator might be, robbing it of the element of surprise. For the birder, this means that these birds can be seen especially well from close up.
The part that we still don't know very much about concerning rattling cisticolas, concerns their breeding. Bold as they usually are, they are very furtive when close to their nests. Parents will easily abandon nests if too frequently disturbed. The nests are well-hidden in grass clumps or in shrubs, and are made from tangled, dry grass, lined with soft vegetable fibres, often incorporating spiderwebs as binding material; apparently, the male and female build the nest together. Breeding usually happens in the spring or summer. The nest has a central chamber with an entrance hole high up on one side. The female lays three or four eggs in the nest. We're still not sure to what extent the male and female share incubation duties, or the feeding of the chicks once hatched, and we also don't know just how much care the parents give to their offspring after they fledge, or for how long.
