Red-billed Firefinch (Lagonosticta senegala) [XC164482]
by James Bradley from Niokolo-Koba National Park, Tambacounda, Tambacounda, Senegal (call)
Red-billed Firefinch (Lagonosticta senegala) [XC376081]
by Hugo Caverzasi from Nairobi, Nairobi County, Kenya (song)
Subspecies
Subspecies brunneiceps intergrades with somaliensis and ruberrima in southern Somalia and northern Kenya.
Proposed subspecies guineensis (described from N'Zerekore, in south-eastern Guinea) is synonymized with nominate, kikuyuensis (from Nairobi, in Kenya) is treated as synonym of ruberrima, and pallidicrissa (from Humpata, in Angola) and confidens (from near Bloemfontein, in Free State, in South Africa) are synonymized with rendalli.
The following 6 subspecies are recognised:
senegala (Linnaeus, 1766) - Southern Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and northern Liberia east to Nigeria. Also mesic oases in southern Algeria and northern Niger.
rhodopsis (Heuglin, 1863) - Eastern Nigeria, southern Chad, northern and central Cameroon, Central African Republic, western Sudan, and lowlands of western Eritrea and Ethiopia.
brunneiceps Sharpe, 1890 - Eritrea and Ethiopia above 1000 m, eastern Sudan northern down R Nile, southern Somalia and northern Kenya.
somaliensis Salvadori, 1894 - South-eastern Ethiopia and Somalia.
ruberrima Reichenow, 1903 - Northern, eastern and south-eastern DRCongo, Uganda and Kenya south to north-eastern Angola, north-eastern Zambia and northern Malawi.
rendalli Hartert, 1898 - Southern Angola, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique south to northern Namibia, northern and eastern Botswana, Zimbabwe, much of South Africa and Swaziland.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet