purple grenadier
{{Short description|Species of bird}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{Speciesbox
| name = Purple grenadier
| image = Uraeginthus-Ianthinogaster-Serengeti.JPG
| image_caption = Male in Serengeti National Park
| image2 = Uraeginthus-Ianthinogaster-Female.JPG
| image2_caption = Female, in Serengeti National Park
| status = LC
| status_system = IUCN3.1
| taxon = Granatina ianthinogaster
| authority = (Reichenow, 1879)
}}
The purple grenadier (Granatina ianthinogaster) is a common species of estrildid finch found in eastern Africa.
Description
The length averages {{cvt|13.3|cm|in}}. All ages and sexes have a black tail, and adults have a red bill. The male has a cinnamon-colored head and neck with a blue patch surrounding the eye. The rump is purplish blue and the underparts are violet-blue with variable rufous patches. The female is smaller and mostly cinnamon brown with white barring on the underparts and silver-blue eyepatches. Juveniles are like females, but mostly unbarred tawny-brown with a reddish-brown bill.{{cite book |last= Zimmerman |first= Dale A. |last2= Turner |first2= Donald A. |last3=Pearson |first3= David J. |year= 1999 |title= Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania |publisher= Princeton University Press |pages= 254–255, 553 |isbn= 978-0-691-01022-9 }}
The song (in Kenya) is described as "a high, thin chit-cheet tsereea-ee-ee tsit-tsit, or cheerer cheet tsee-tsee sur-chit."
Range and habitat
It is found in subtropical and tropical (lowland) dry shrubland in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, an estimated global extent of occurrence of {{cvt|1500000|km2}}. The status of the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
References
{{commons category|Uraeginthus ianthinogaster}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Taxonbar|from=Q55326338|from2=Q854676}}
{{Estrildidae-stub}}