Birds of Silvermine #9: Karoo Prinia
The cache is the 4th of an additional 5 bird-themed caches added (with kind approval) to ge0cath’s original set of 5 located along an adjacent trail to the south.
See GC9DNAD BoS #6 Cape Sugarbird for background details and useful waypoints.
The Karoo (or spotted) prinia (Prinia maculosa) is a small passerine bird and a resident breeder in South Africa, Lesotho and far southern Namibia. It lives in karoo scrub, fynbos and bracken-covered slopes in semi-desert and mountains.
The specifies name is from the Latin maculosus meaning ‘spotted’. Of the 3 subspecies the one found in south Namibia, central and south South Africa is P. m. maculosa.
It is an active warbler with a long graduated tail sometimes cocked. It is 13–15cm long with the sexes identical, but juveniles much yellower below than the adults and less heavily streaked.
Pairs or small groups frequent fynbos, strandveld, Karoo scrublands, and gardens, typically low in scrub and occasionally hopping on the ground, but sometimes perching on the top of a bush, where they actively forage for small insects, with tail cocked and frequently swinging from side-to-side.
Its calls include a sharp chleet-chleet-chleet-chleet-chleet-chleet (listen here) and a fast buzzy tit-tit-tit-
tit-tit (listen here).
The thin-walled oval or pear shaped nest with a side entrance is built by both sexes in about 4-14 days. It is made from woven green grass which turns light brown over time. A thick lining of plant down or wool is added to it during incubation. It is typically concealed in a tuft of spiny grass, sapling, shrub or bush, occasionally in a garden plant adjacent to a house. It may even place it in an old Yellow bishop or Southern red bishop nest.
1-5 eggs are laid between July-January, peaking from August-November, and incubated solely by the female for approximately 11-17 days. Chicks are fed various invertebrates by both parents, and leave the nest after about 10-14 days.
See videos here (feeding in reeds), here and here (perched and calling).