Familiar chat

Introduction: Familiar chats (Cercomela familiaris) inhabit rocky mountain slopes, farmyards, villages and rocky hills and outcrops. They become tame and familiar around humans, in towns and at picnic sites, as well as village gardens, either singly, in pairs or small family groups.

Distribution: Fairly common throughout Namibia less for the north-eastern region. Found in Etosha National Park, Epupa Falls, Skeleton Coast, Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, south to the Orange River and Fish River Canyon. Absent from most of the southern Namib Desert.
Diet: Eats mainly spiders, centipedes and millipedes, grasshoppers and crickets, weevils, ants, bugs and beetles, moths and butterflies. Eats seeds and soft fruits and scraps of human and pet foods.

Description: Of the 6 subspecies found in southern Africa, the main differences centre around the shade of brown on the upper parts, the strength of the rufous on the rump and the shading of the underparts. They variation in size is very little.
Breeding: From 2 to 4 eggs are laid June to April and incubated for up to 15 days.

Size: 15cm.

Weight: 21g.