The brown-throated wattle-eye (''Platysteira cyanea''), also known as the common wattle-eye or scarlet-spectacled wattle-eye, is a small, insectivorous

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

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 lightweig ...

. The

wattle-eye 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. Thes ...

s were previously classed as a subfamily of the

Old World flycatcher The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia), with the exception of several vagrants and two species, Bluethroat (''Luscinia svecica)'' and Northe ...

family Muscicapidae, but are now usually separated from that group. This species breeds in west, central and northeast tropical

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. This common species is found in secondary forest and other woodland areas, including gardens. The

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s are laid in a small neat lichen and

cobweb A spider web, spiderweb, spider's web, or cobweb (from the archaic word '' coppe'', meaning "spider") is a structure created by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets, generally meant to catch its prey. Spi ...

cup low in a tree or bush. The adult brown-throated wattle-eye is a stout bird about long. The breeding male has glossy black upperparts, and white underparts with a neat black breast band. There is a strong white wingbar, and fleshy red wattles above the eye. The females are grey-black above, and also have the white wing bar and red wattles. There is a small patch of white below the bill, and the throat and breast are maroon, separated from the white belly by the black breast band. Young males are washed-out, greyer versions of the female. These active insect-eating birds are found in pairs or small groups. The ringing call of the brown-throated wattle-eye is a very characteristic six note '' doo-dd-dum-di-do-do.''

Gallery

File:Brown-throated Wattle-eye - Gambia (31807728694).jpg, Brown-throated wattle-eye, Gambia Image:Brownthroatedwattleeyemale.jpg, Male photographed at Bwindi, SW. Uganda

References

* ''Birds of The Gambia'' by Barlow, Wacher and Disley, {{Taxonbar, from=Q1923019 brown-throated wattle-eye Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa brown-throated wattle-eye brown-throated wattle-eye