The Cape robin-chat (Dessonornis caffer) is a small passerine bird of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It has a disjunct range from South Sudan to South Africa.
The locally familiar and confiding species has colonized and benefited from a range of man-altered habitats, including city suburbs and farmstead woodlots. It is an accomplished songster like other robin-chats, but is rather less colourful than most, and frequents either drier settings or higher altitudes. It forages in the proximity of cover, in the open or in fairly well-lit environments. Its distribution resembles that of the karoo–olive complex of thrushes, but it prefers the bracken-briar fringes of Afromontane forest, and does not enter far into forest proper. It is altitudinally segregated from the red-capped robin-chat, and is less of a skulker.
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The Cape robin-chat occurs from South Sudan (mainly Imatong Mts, above 1,600 m) southwards to Uganda, the DRC (1,800 m – 3,475 m), Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia (above 1,800 m), Malawi (where common above 1,500 m), Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho. It is a mainly resident breeder in eastern and southern Africa, though some adults and juveniles may migrate more than 100 km to lower, warmer regions in winter. In their winter refuges, they may coexist with several other species of robin. Some are however year-round residents even at high altitudes. A five-year tenure of a breeding territory by the same pair is commonplace, and the maximum recorded life span is over 16 years.
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