WEAVERS - BIRD OF THE MONTH - JUNE & JULY 2014*

[Lisbeth]

The Olive-headed Weaver (Ploceus olivaceiceps) is a species of bird in the Ploceidae family. It is found in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests. It is threatened by habitat loss.

[Lisbeth]

Genus Anaplectes

Red-headed Weaver, Anaplectes rubriceps



Description
Length 13-15cm, weight 17-26g.
The vivid red head, breast and mantle of the breeding male Red-headed Weaver are diagnostic. Red thin bill. White underparts.
Females and non breeding males havea bright yellow head with orange bill and a clear white belly.

Distribution
Occurs across much of sub-Saharan Africa, excluding the lowland forests of West Africa and central DRC, from Senegal to Somalia south to southern Africa. Here it is uncommon to fairly common from north-eastern Namibia through northern and eastern Botswana to Zimbabwe, Mozambique and north-eastern South Africa.
In West and East Africa the male has a black mask; one race in East Africa has a red plumage.
Habitat
It generally prefers broad-leaved (especially miombo (Brachystegia) woodland, Acacia savanna, bushveld and gardens, usually of farms.

Diet
It mainly eats arthropods, supplemented with seeds and fruit, gleaning food from the foliage of trees, bushes and creepers. It also hawks insects aerially and plucks spiders from their webs, often joining mixed species foraging flocks.

Breeding
Monogamous but sometimes polygynous, as one male may mate with multiple females within a colony. The nest is built solely by the male, consisting of an upside-down bottle-shaped structure (i.e. an rough oval with a vertical entrance hole at the base) made of leaf midribs, twigs, grass stems, broad leaves and tendrils (rather than green grass as in most Ploceus weavers). Once it is approved by the female she lines the interior with bark fibres, feathers, dry grass or leaves. It is typically strung from a few twigs beneath the canopy of a tree, such as the Baobab (Adansonia digitata), but it also regularly uses man-made objects such as windmill vanes, telephone wires and edge of thatched roofs. It often nests in the vicinity of other weaver species or even raptors such the African Hawk-eagle (Aquila spilogaster). Egg-laying season is from July-February, peaking from September-November. It lays 1-4 eggs, usually 2-3 eggs, which are incubated mainly by the female for about 12-13 days. The chicks are fed by both sexes but mostly the female, leaving the nest after roughly 17 days.

[Lisbeth]

Marloth - January

[Dewi]

Red-headed Weaver







Non-breeding Male I think.

Shingwedzi.

[Amoli]

I have one pic - taken in Barberton, April 2014

[nan]

Red-headed Weaver
Kruger


female 19.10.2009

27.10.2009

[Lisbeth]

Kruger - female red-headed weaver




Kruger - Red-headed weaver, male

[Rumuruti]

Red-headed weaver taken in Kruger.

[Flutterby]

Red-headed Weavers, Masorini, 2012

Male



Female

[Lisbeth]

Genus Quelea

The Red-headed Quelea (Quelea erythrops) is a species of bird in the Ploceidae family. It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Description
Length 13-15cm, weight 17-26g.
The vivid red head, breast and mantle of the breeding male Red-headed Weaver are diagnostic. Red thin bill. White underparts.
Females and non breeding males havea bright yellow head with orange bill and a clear white belly.

Distribution
Occurs across much of sub-Saharan Africa, excluding the lowland forests of West Africa and central DRC, from Senegal to Somalia south to southern Africa. Here it is uncommon to fairly common from north-eastern Namibia through northern and eastern Botswana to Zimbabwe, Mozambique and north-eastern South Africa.
In West and East Africa the male has a black mask; one race in East Africa has a red plumage.

Habitat
It generally prefers broad-leaved (especially miombo (Brachystegia) woodland, Acacia savanna, bushveld and gardens, usually of farms.

Diet
It mainly eats arthropods, supplemented with seeds and fruit, gleaning food from the foliage of trees, bushes and creepers. It also hawks insects aerially and plucks spiders from their webs, often joining mixed species foraging flocks.

Breeding
Monogamous but sometimes polygynous, as one male may mate with multiple females within a colony. The nest is built solely by the male, consisting of an upside-down bottle-shaped structure (i.e. an rough oval with a vertical entrance hole at the base) made of leaf midribs, twigs, grass stems, broad leaves and tendrils (rather than green grass as in most Ploceus weavers). Once it is approved by the female she lines the interior with bark fibres, feathers, dry grass or leaves. It is typically strung from a few twigs beneath the canopy of a tree, such as the Baobab (Adansonia digitata), but it also regularly uses man-made objects such as windmill vanes, telephone wires and edge of thatched roofs. It often nests in the vicinity of other weaver species or even raptors such the African Hawk-eagle (Aquila spilogaster). Egg-laying season is from July-February, peaking from September-November. It lays 1-4 eggs, usually 2-3 eggs, which are incubated mainly by the female for about 12-13 days. The chicks are fed by both sexes but mostly the female, leaving the nest after roughly 17 days.