Red-headed Weaver - BirdForum Opus

Male
Photo by safariranger
Kruger National Park, South Africa

Identification

Length 13-15 cm, mass 17-26 g.

Long, red bill diagnostic, except where there is overlap in range with Red Weaver.

Sub-Saharan Africa.

Red Weaver was formerly included in this species.

A. r. leuconotus
Photo © by volker sthamer
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, 9 September 2019

Clements recognizes these subspecies[1]:

Senegambia to southern Chad, northern Central African Republic, southwestern and southern Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and northern Somalia, south through Uganda and Kenya to Malawi

Southern Angola to north-eastern Namibia, southern Zambia, Mozambique and north-eastern South Africa

Photo by zoomer
Kruger National Park, South Africa, October 2010

Woodland and savanna.

Forages in trees and bushes for invertebrates; also eats seeds and fruit.

Uses coarser material for its nest than most other weavers; includes stripped midribs of leaves, twigs and broad leaves.

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2023. IOC World Bird List (v 13.2). Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.13.2. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Red-headed Weaver. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 28 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Red-headed_Weaver

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