African Hill Babbler (Sylvia abyssinica) [XC98876]
by Johannes Fischer from Mount Cameroon, Cameroon (song)
African Hill Babbler (Sylvia abyssinica) [XC515149]
by Louis A. Hansen from Nyamigado camp (and day trips from here), Mafwemiro forest, Mpwapwa, Dodoma Region, Tanzania (call)
Subspecies
Illadopsis abyssinica and Illadopsis atriceps (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) have been lumped as abyssinica and transferred to the genus Pseudoalcippe following Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993).
Species often treated as conspecific with Ruwenzori Hill-Babbler (Sylvia atriceps), and strongly similar in voice, but presence on Bioko and Mt Cameroon, in close proximity to populations of latter in Nigeria and Cameroon, tends to indicate that the two are distinct. Subspecies ansorgei sometimes regarded as inseparable from nominate.
Proposed subspecies chyulu (from Chyulu Hills, in Kenya) treated as synonym of nominate; stictigula (northern Malawi and north-western Mozambique) synonymized with stierlingi.
The following 7 subspecies are recognised:
monachus (Reichenow, 1892) - Mt Cameroon, in western Cameroon.
claudei (Alexander, 1903) - Bioko I (Fernando Póo).
abyssinica (Rüppell, 1840) - Central Ethiopia, south-eastern Sudan, eastern Uganda, western and southern Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania.
ansorgei (Rothschild, 1918) - South-western and southern Angola. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Chestnut-vented Warbler (Sylvia subcoerulea).
stierlingi (Reichenow, 1898) - East-central and south-western Tanzania, Nyika Plateau (north-eastern Zambia and northern Malawi), and north-western Mozambique.
stictigula (Shelley, 1903) - Malawi and northern Mozambique.
atriceps (Sharpe, 1902) - South-eastern Nigeria, south-western Cameroon, esst-central DR Congo, western Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Ruwenzori Hill-Babbler (Sylvia atriceps).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet