The Red-billed Firefinch or Senegal Firefinch (Lagonosticta senegala) is a very small passerine

Passerine

A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...

 bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

. This estrildid finch

Estrildid finch

The estrildid finches are small passerine birds of the Old World tropics and Australasia. They can be classified as the family Estrildidae , or as a sub-group within the family Passeridae, which also includes the true sparrows....

 is a resident breeding bird in almost all parts of sub-Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...

n Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 10,000,000 km². This species has also been introduced to Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, however, it has since become extinct in Egypt.

Description

The Red-billed Firefinch is 10 cm in length. The adult male has entirely scarlet plumage apart from brown wings. The bill is pink, and there is a yellow eye-ring. Females have uniformly brown upperparts and buff underparts. There is a small red patch in front of both eyes, and the bill is pink.

Range and habitat

This widespread and abundant species is often found around human habitation, often with other species such as the Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu

Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu

The Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu is a small passerine bird. This estrildid finch is a resident breeding bird in drier regions of tropical sub-Saharan Africa. Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 7,700,000 km².-Description:The Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu is in length...

, and its soft queet-queet call is a familiar African sound. The song is a rising chick-pea-pea-pea.

The Red-billed Firefinch is a small gregarious bird which feeds mainly on grain and other seeds. It frequents open grassland and cultivation. The nest is a large domed grass structure with a side entrance, built low in a bush, wall or thatch into which 3-6 white eggs are laid. The nest of this species is parasitised by the Village Indigobird

Village Indigobird

The Village Indigobird, Vidua chalybeata, is a small songbird. It is a resident breeding bird in most of Africa south of the Sahara Desert....

.

Origin

Origin and phylogeny has been obtained by Antonio Arnaiz-Villena et al.. Estrildinae may have originated in India and dispersed thereafter (towards Africa and Pacific Ocean habitats).

External links

• Red-billed Firefinch videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection