Other Names (World)
Common Waxbill, Brown Waxbill, Barred Waxbill, St Helena Waxbill, Black-lored Waxbill (nigriloris), Black-faced Waxbill(!) (nigriloris), Kiabo Waxbill (nigriloris)
Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo [The Democratic Republic of the], Congo [The Democratic Republic of the], Côte dIvoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, French Polynesia (B), Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sâo Tomé e Principe (B), Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania [United Republic of], Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Vagrant to Mali, Niger.
Introduced to Bermuda, Brazil, Cape Verde (B), Kuwait (E), Mauritius (B), New Caledonia (B), Portugal (B), Puerto Rico (B), Réunion (B), Seychelles (B), St Helena (B), Uruguay (B), USA, Vanuatu (B).
Rarity Status
Currently this species is not classified as a rarity in this country OR information has not been updated.
Population
Estimated population is unknown (2010).
Common Waxbill (Estrilda) [XC486621]
by from Santiago (near Tavira), Tavira, Faro, Portugal (call, song)
Common Waxbill (Estrilda astrild) [XC807021]
by Carlos Pereira from Paul da Pedreira do Cabo Da Praia, Praia da Vit\u00f3ria, Azores, Portugal (call, flight call)
Subspecies
Distinctive black-faced subspecies nigriloris sometimes considered a separate species, but recent however found it to be embedded in single clade with all other subspecies, and to be genetically nearly identical to adesma and cavendishi (which it replaces along R Lualaba), and slightly more different from rubriventris and occidentalis.
Other proposed subspecies include sousae (described from Sío Tomé, where species introduced), treated as synonym of jagoensis; schoutedeni (from Mbuji-Mayi, capital of Kasai-Oriental, in south-central DRCongo), synonymized with cavendishi; and ngamiensis (from Shorobe, in north-western Botswana), synonymized with niediecki. Subspecies adesma sometimes listed as nyansae, but under the ICZN Code this name is permanently invalid, having been replaced due to secondary homonymy prior to 1960.
The following 16 subspecies are recognised:
kempi Bates, 1930 - Western Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
occidentalis Jardine & Fraser, 1852 - Southern Mali, Ivory Coast, Bioko I (Fernando Póo), and Nigeria east to northern DRCongo.
macmillani Ogilvie-Grant, 1907 - Southern Sudan.
peasei Shelley, 1903 - Ethiopia.
rubriventris (Vieillot, 1817) - Coastal Gabon south to north-western Angola.
adesma Reichenow, 1916 - Eastern DRCongo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and north-western Tanzania.
massaica Neumann, 1907 - Central Kenya south to northern Tanzania.
minor (Cabanis, 1878) - Southern Somalia, eastern Kenya, north-eastern Tanzania, and Zanzibar I.
nigriloris Chapin, 1928 - Swamps of south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (no published records since 1950). Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Black-lored Waxbill (Estrilda nigriloris).
cavendishi Sharpe, 1900 - South-eastern DRCongo (except L Upemba area) and southern Tanzania south to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
jagoensis Alexander, 1898 - Coastal western Angola.
angolensis Reichenow, 1902 - Western Angola (except coast).
niediecki Reichenow, 1916 - Central Angola east to south-western Zambia, northern Botswana and western Zimbabwe.
damarensis Reichenow, 1902 - Namibia.
astrild (Linnaeus, 1758) - Southern Botswana, and western and southern South Africa (North West Province south to western Cape and Free State).
tenebridorsa Clancey, 1957 - Northern and eastern South Africa (Limpopo south to eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal) and western Swaziland.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet