Its diet includes beetles, termites, ants, crickets, caterpillars, bugs, spiders and millipedes.

It also consumes the fruits of the woolly caper-bush (Capparis tomentosa), the tassel-berry (Antidesma venosum), the sand raisin (Grewia microthyrsa), the magic guarrie (Euclea divinorum) and the dune guarrie (Euclea racemosa).

There are usually two or three eggs and the incubation is done solely by the hen bird and lasts fourteen to fifteen days.

Both parents feed the chicks, which leave the nest after about a fortnight but remain dependent on the adults for another six or seven weeks.

Its range includes parts of Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Eswatini and South Africa and covers an area of approximately 645,000 square kilometres (249,000 sq mi).