Appearance
The neddicky is a small, vocal, dull-coloured brown bird, 11 cm in length. Its tail is not as short as that of some other cisticola species. This bird has a reddish cap and a plain back. The underparts are buff, darker in tone on the breast. The brown bill is short and straight, and the feet and legs are pinkish-brown. The eye is light brown. The sexes are similar, but juvenile birds are yellower.The southern form found in the western Cape Province has grey underparts and a grey-brown back. Although cisticolas can be very similar in plumage, this greyish subspecies is therefore quite distinctive.
The call of the neddicky is a monotonous, penetrating, repetitive ''weep weep weep''. The alarm call is a loud clicking ''tictictictic'', like a fingernail running across the teeth of a comb.
Status
This common species has a large range, with an estimated extent of 4,100,000 km². The population size is believed to be large, and the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List . For these reasons, the species is evaluated as least concern.Behavior
The neddicky builds a ball-shaped nest with a side entrance from dry grass, cobwebs and felted plant down. The nest is placed low in a thorny shrub, or in thick grass. In South Africa, this bird breeds mainly from September to March.The neddicky is usually seen in pairs or singly, flitting in a bush or the grass at the base of a tree as it forages for small insects.
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