the species’ young may make a melodious twip call. Distribution and habitat The bateleur occupies a very large range through mainly sub-Saharan Africa. The species resides in West Africa from southern Mauritania to Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, the northern portions of Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and much of Ghana through western Burkina Faso, much of Togo and Benin and northern and central Nigeria. It is possibly extinct in Mauritania, range restricted in Guinea (mainly to Kiang West) and Liberia but is still locally common where good habitat remains elsewhere in this region. Similarly far north, a rare population is believed to persist out of Africa in extreme southwestern Saudi Arabia and western Yemen. In central and east Africa, the bateleur may be found in northern Cameroon, southern Niger, southern Chad, southern Sudan, South Sudan, northern Central African Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, western Somalia, northern, eastern and southern Democratic Republic of the Congo and a majority of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. In Southern Africa, the bateleur is found quite widely, being found almost throughout, where habitat is favorable, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique. Additionally, they may range Botswana in all but southernmost portion also being found still in northern and eastern Namibia and northwestern South Africa, where its range has contracted considerably from as far south once as the Cape Province to almost entirely to being found exclusively within protected areas north of the Orange River excepting a portion of Kruger National Park. The species is possibly extirpated from Eswatini in southern Africa. The bateleur is regarded as a vagrant in the countries of Tunisia, Cyprus and rarely Egypt, Israel and Iraq. In April 2012 a juvenile bateleur was seen in Algeciras in southern Spain. Habitat The bateleur is a common to fairly common resident or nomadic bird of the partially open savanna country and of woodland within Sub-Saharan Africa. During breeding, it tends to require closed-canopy savannah-woodland habitats, including Acacia savanna as well as mopane and miombo woodlands. They may too acclimate to thornveld and overall various fairly shrubby areas. It tends to rarely occur in heavily forested and mountainous habitats. However, while the species can forage extensively in largely treeless habitats such as treeless savanna but is nearly as rare in pure desert lacking arborescent growth as it is in tropical rainforests. Bateleurs are seldom to be found around extensive wetlands but may regularly be found near