Red-faced Mousebird (Urocolius indicus) [XC701253]
by Dawie de Swardt from Inhaca island, Mozambique (call, song)
Red-faced Mousebird (Urocolius indicus) [XC640436]
by Lynette Rudman from Makana Local Municipality (near Fort Brown), Western District, Eastern Cape, South Africa (call, contact call)
Subspecies
Forms a superspecies with Blue-naped Mousebird (Urocolius macrourus). Western Angolan population has been separated as subspecies angolensis, but now usually regarded as indistinguishable from lacteifrons. Birds from south-eastern Zaire sometimes assigned subspecies lualabae and those of northern Botswana subspecies ngamiensis, but both probably better included within mossambicus.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
lacteifrons (Sharpe, 1892) - Coastal Angola (southern from Cabinda) and most of Namibia.
mossambicus (Reichenow, 1896) - Extreme south-eastern Zaire and south-western Tanzania (around L Rukwa) south to south-eastern Angola (northern possibly to eastern Moxico), Zambia and Malawi.
pallidus (Reichenow, 1896) - Coastal areas of extreme south-eastern Tanzania and northern Mozambique.
transvaalensis Roberts, 1922 - South-western Zambia, Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique south to South Africa (except south).
indicus (Latham, 1790) - Southern Cape Province east to R Great Kei.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet