Pririt batis

The pririt batis (Batis pririt) also known as the pririt puff-back flycatcher or pririt puffback, is a small passerine bird in the wattle-eye family. It is resident in Southern Africa and southwestern Angola.

Pririt batis
Male B. p. affinis
Damaraland, Namibia
Female in Northern Cape, South Africa
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Platysteiridae
Genus: Batis
Species:
B. pririt
Binomial name
Batis pririt
(Vieillot, 1818)

It is a small stout insect-eating bird, found in dry broadleaf woodland and thorn scrub. The nest is a small neat cup low in a tree or bush.

The pririt batis is strikingly patterned. The adult male has a dark grey crown and back, black eye mask and white throat. It has a black rump and tail, and its wing are black with white edging to the flight feathers and a long white shoulder patch. The underparts are white with a broad black breast band and black speckles on the flanks. The female and juvenile plumages differ in that there is no black breast band, but the throat and breast are a warm buff colour.

The pririt batis hunts by flycatching, or by taking prey from the ground like a shrike. The song is typically a slow descending series of whistled notes: teuu, teuu, teuu, teuu.

References
  1. BirdLife International (2012). "Batis pririt". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey and Warwick Tarboton, SASOL Birds of Southern Africa (Struik 2002) ISBN 1-86872-721-1
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