Red-capped Robin-Chat
Cossypha natalensis
🔍 Enlarge Here all year
What it sounds like
A plaintive, trembling two-note call, and a fluty song that borrows freely from every other bird in the garden. It is a fine mimic, so a strange bird you cannot place is often this one showing off.
suncana, CC BY 4.0How to recognise it
Also called the Natal Robin, and the bird on the Pigeon Valley walk posters. Pumpkin-orange face, throat, breast and tail, with steel-blue wings and back. Unmistakable once you have seen it, though it is shy and stays low in shaded thickets. Ubiquitous in Pigeon Valley and common in any Berea garden with dense cover and deep leaf litter. It was first described to science from Durban itself in 1840, which makes it about as local as a bird can be.
Seen in Manor Gardens
Nobody has logged a Red-capped Robin-Chat here yet. If you spot one, you will be the first on the record.
