It is a common resident breeder in South Africa and Lesotho, and is also found in southernmost areas of Botswana and Namibia.

The first formal description of the sickle-winged chat was by the Swedish zoologist Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1858 under the binomial name Luscinia sinuata.

[4] It was moved to the current genus, Emarginata, after molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2010 and 2012 found that Cercomela was polyphyletic.

The contrast between the dark upperparts and the much paler underparts distinguish this species from the more uniformly coloured familiar chat.

The sickle-winged chat builds a cup-shaped nest of straw and leaves on the ground, usually under a bush or shrub.