Africa Wild

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193. Orange River Francolin Scleroptila levaillantoides (Kalaharipatrys)


Rietvlei


Rietvlei

Description 34 cm. A medium sized francolin with cryptic grey-brown upperparts, rufous barring with buff shaft streaks. Note the white throat is unmarked. Underparts are cream or buff with heavy chestnut blotches down the breast and flanks.

Distribution Central South Africa, Botswana & Northern Namibia.

Habitat Open grasslands and savanna.

Call A high pitched ki-keet ki-kit, often at dawn.

Status A near endemic which is locally common in suitable habitat.

Very cool find

wow

Kruger Sightings
@LatestKruger
I was sitting at a waterhole near Skukuza in my Land Rover and eating a rusk. Then suddenly this little fellow jumped up on my camera. I reached out to my other camera and took these photos as my feathered buddy waited to try and get some rusk as well!
Tinged by Dries

Francolins and Spurfowls - what's the difference?

The distinction betweenbthe ‘true francolins’ and spurfowls is apparent in their plumage, escape flight behaviour and vocalisations.
Francolins have quaillike upperparts while spurfowls have streaked or vermiculated back feathers.
Francolins typically crouch and sit tight before flushing when disturbed, whereas spurfowls tend to run for cover.
And francolins have musical, whistling calls compared to the raucous crowing or cackling calls of spurfowls.

The African francolins are related to the Asiatic francolins, the Junglefowl and Bamboo Partridge Bambusicola thoracica. Since they link with Asiatic francolins, including the Black Francolin Francolinus francolinus, which was the first francolin described to science, they have retained the common English name ‘francolin’.
By comparison, spurfowls group with quails and a range of northern hemisphere ‘partridges’. The name ‘spurfowl’ was already in use for the Yellow-necked Spurfowl Pternistis leucoscepus of East Africa and so offered an alternative name for the species with no close affinities to the true francolins.


Proposed taxonomic changes for species in Southern Africa:

The bantamlike Crested Francolin is designated a new genus, Ortygornis, and split into three species.
- The Crested Francolin O. sephaena is now confined to a band across southern Angola, northern Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and north-eastern South Africa.
- Kirk’s Francolin O. rovuma has two subspecies: O. r. rovuma in coastal Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique and O. r. spilogaster in eastern Ethiopia and Somalia.
- The third species, Grant’s Francolin O. grantii, is found in southern Sudan and western Ethiopia through to north-central Tanzania.

The Orange River Francolin also offers a new species, the Kunene Francolin Scleroptila jugularis in southern Angola and northern Namibia, while the Orange River Francolin is now confined as two subspecies, S. levalliantoides levalliantoides and S. l. pallidior in South Africa and Botswana respectively.

Crawshay’s Francolin S. crawshayii from north of the Zambezi River is elevated from the Red-winged Francolin S. levaillantii, which now becomes
a southern African endemic.

The Coqui Francolin complex in the new genus Campocolinus has five newly elevated species:
Pale-bellied Francolin C. spinetorum, Bar-bellied Francolin C. maharao, Plain-bellied Francolin C. hubbardi, Thika Francolin C. thikaeand Stuhlmann’s Francolin C. stuhlmanni, while the Coqui Francolin retains four subspecies: C. coqui coqui, C. c. ruahdae, C. c. vernayi and C. c. kasaicus.

If these recommendations are widely adopted, there will be three new species in southern Africa: Kunene Francolin in northern Namibia, Kirk’s
Francolin in central Mozambique and Stuhlmann’s Francolin in central to north-eastern Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The subregion will also acquire two more endemic francolins in addition to Grey-winged Francolin S. afra, namely the Orange River and Red-winged francolins.



Little, R. 2020. Elevating gamebirds: New francolin and spurfowl taxonomy. African Birdlife Vol. 8 No 3 (March / April 2019)8:50-53.

As if it isn't complicated enough

Maniacs!

It makes perfect sense to me. Different looking birds should be different species.

These two are now different species