Habitat
Subtropical and tropical montane moist forest, lowland dry shrubland, lowland seasonally wet / flooded grassland, dry savanna. From sea-level - 1,800 m, occasionally up to 2,420 m.
African Firefinch (Lagonosticta rubricata) [XC49538]
by Charles Hesse from S7.79978 E35.80392, SE of Iringa, Iringa Region, Tanzania (alarm call)
African Firefinch (Lagonosticta rubricata) [XC682072]
by Tim Cockcroft from Mutinondo Wilderness area, Northern Province, Zambia (call)
Subspecies
African Firefinch (Lagonosticta rubricata) and Pale-billed Firefinch (Lagonosticta landanae) (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) are retained as separate species contra Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993) who include landanae as a subspecies of African Firefinch (Lagonosticta rubricata).
Subspecies landanae often treated as a separate species, on basis mainly of reddish bill colour. Most other subspecies intergrade with one another, although nominate not known to intergrade with haematocephala.
Proposed subspecies neglecta (described from Guinea-Bissau), named on basis of red cheeks of female, considered untenable; treated as a synonym of polionota; ugandae (described from Fort Portal, in Uganda) synonymized with congica.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
polionota Shelley, 1873 - Southern Senegal, south-western Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and northern Liberia east to Nigeria.
congica Sharpe, 1890 - Cameroon east to southern Sudan, north-eastern DRCongo (Uele, Kivu) and western Uganda, south to Gabon and northern and north-eastern Angola.
haematocephala Neumann, 1907 - Eastern Africa from Sudan east of R Nile, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya Highlands south to Zambia, Malawi, highlands of eastern Zimbabwe, coastal Tanzania and northern and central Mozambique (north of R Save).
landanae Sharpe, 1890 - Cabinda and lower Congo River to north-western Angola and southern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Pale-billed Firefinch (Lagonosticta landanae).
rubricata (Lichtenstein, 1823) - Northern and eastern South Africa, Swaziland and southern Mozambique (south of R Save).