The Angola batis (''Batis minulla'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family

Platysteiridae Platysteiridae is a family of small, stout passerine birds of the African tropics. The family contains the wattle-eyes, batises and shrike-flycatchers. They were previously classed as a subfamily of the Old World flycatchers, Muscicapidae. These ...

. It is found in western central Africa.

Description

The Angola batis is a small pied songbird with a rather dumpy appearance and a restless nature. The adult males have a bluish grey forehead and crown with a small white spot on the lores and a glossy black mask across the eyes, extending on to the nape and down the sides of the neck with a white spot on the nape. It has a grey mantle, blackish scapulars with the back, rump and uppertail covers being blackish grey with white spots. The wings have black flight feathers with narrow white edges. There is a white wing stripe. The trail is black with white outer tail feathers. The underparts are white except for a black band across the breast and the greyish undertail coverts. The eyes are bright yellow while the bill and legs are black. The female is similar to the male but her breast band is chestnut rather than black. They are about long and weigh .

Voice

The calls of the Angola batis are little known, the territorial call is a series of high-pitched notes, "zee-zee-zee-zee-zee", which has been likened to a squeaky bicycle pump.

Distribution

The presence of the Angola batis in south eastern

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

is yet to be confirmed but the species occurs in the southern

Congo Congo or The Congo may refer to either of two countries that border the Congo River in central Africa: * Democratic Republic of the Congo, the larger country to the southeast, capital Kinshasa, formerly known as Zaire, sometimes referred to a ...

through western

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

into northern

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

south to the

Quiçama National Park Quiçama National Park, also known as Kissama National Park (Portuguese: Parque Nacional do Quiçama or Parque Nacional da Quissama), is a national park in northwestern Angola. It is the only functioning national park in all of Angola, with the o ...

, from

Luanda Luanda () is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seaport ...

Behaviour and habitat

The habits of the Angola batis are little known, it feeds on insects which are often caught in the air by sallying from a perch, a behaviour called "flycatching". The appear to be rather solitary, like other batises, being recorded mainly as single or in pairs. The cup shaped nest is built by both sexes from strips of bark and spider webs and is placed in the fork of a small tree at around head height. The only recorded clutches have consisted of two eggs. Breeding behaviour has been observed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in July. The Angola batis occurs in secondary and riverine gallery forest, thick woodland dominated by '' Croton spp'' as well as adjacent bush, tickets and the

ecotone An ecotone is a transition area between two biological communities, where two communities meet and integrate. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local (the zone between a field and forest) or regional (the transition between forest and gras ...

between forest and

savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

. Occasionally recorded in dry woodland, especially in the southern part of its range, as well as coffee plantations.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1308750 Batis (bird) Birds of Central Africa Birds described in 1874 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot