The Purple Grenadier (Uraeginthus ianthinogaster) is a common species of estrildid finch found in eastern Africa.
The length averages 5.25 in. All ages and sexes have a black tail, and adults have a red bill. The male has a cinnamon-colored head and neck with a blue patch surrounding the eye. The rump is purplish blue and the underparts are violet-blue with variable rufous patches. The female is smaller and mostly cinnamon brown with white barring on the underparts and silver-blue eyepatches. Juveniles are like females, but mostly unbarred tawny-brown with a reddish-brown bill.[2]
The song (in Kenya) is described as "a high, thin chit-cheet tsereea-ee-ee tsit-tsit, or cheerer cheet tsee-tsee sur-chit."
It is found in subtropical and tropical (lowland) dry shrubland in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, an estimated global extent of occurrence of 1,500,000 km². The status of the species is evaluated as Least Concern. Estrildinae may have originated in India and dispersed thereafter (towards Africa and Pacific Ocean habitats).