Cape Rockjumper (Chaetops frenatus)
About the Cape Rockjumper
The Cape rockjumper or rufous rockjumper (Chaetops frenatus) is a medium-sized insectivorous passerine bird endemic to the mountain Fynbos of southernmost South Africa. The Cape and Drakensberg rockjumpers were split into separate species in the 1980s. The Latin epithet frenatus refers to the "bridled" or black-and-white head pattern. When the Drakensberg rockjumper was split it was given the Latin aurantius meaning 'orange'. Initial taxonomy placed rockjumpers in the thrush family Turdidae in 1867. They were then moved to the babblers Timaliidae in the 1980s, before genetic work in the 1990s placed them in their own family Chaetopidae. See the main page on the rockjumper for more details.
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We only publish recordings we may use commercially, because this site is supported by ads. xeno-canto lists 15 recordings for this species: 10 CC BY-NC-ND · 5 CC BY-NC-SA. None of them permits commercial use, so there is no player here — the page is kept as a profile so the bird is not missing from the guide.
As soon as someone uploads a freely licensed recording, we mirror it and the player appears here.
Listed as recorded in South Africa in the xeno-canto catalogue.