Black-headed weaver near Paris, France (1 Viewer)

[Stéphane 77]

I photographed this Black-Headed Weaver on 23 December 2021 in a garden near my hometown about 25 km south-east of Paris.
It showed up almost every day on a feeder from mid-December to the beginning of February and suddenly disappeared according to the owner of the feeder. It apparently changed from a breeding to a non-breeding male plumage, but I was unable to watch it with the latter.
The question is : is this a bird escaped from captivity or could it be a distant vagrant from south Spain and Portugal where a small population is now thriving ?
Does anyone know of European sightings of this species apart from Spain and Portugal ?
Stéphane

 

[kb57]

There are eBird records from Santander and Barcelona / Costa Brava area, so a northward range extension / vagrancy to Paris seems possible.
Set against this, they're a wetland species, and not sure how often a wild bird would come to a garden habitat and visit a feeder (although they do utilise other habitats near wetlands - my first ever last year was feeding on the fairway of an Algarve golf course, albeit close to a reedbed).
The other strange thing for a wild bird would be to moult out of breeding plumage over the winter - not sure what their African breeding season is, but I believe European birds enter breeding plumage in late winter?

 

[Stéphane 77]

There are eBird records from Santander and Barcelona / Costa Brava area, so a northward range extension / vagrancy to Paris seems possible.
Set against this, they're a wetland species, and not sure how often a wild bird would come to a garden habitat and visit a feeder (although they do utilise other habitats near wetlands - my first ever last year was feeding on the fairway of an Algarve golf course, albeit close to a reedbed).
The other strange thing for a wild bird would be to moult out of breeding plumage over the winter - not sure what their African breeding season is, but I believe European birds enter breeding plumage in late winter?

If I'm not wrong, you don't see my ebird record on their map (I don't). It means that records for that species outside Spain and Portugal are not shown and one cannot use ebird to have information on sightings in more northern countries. Hence my question.
Strangely, it turns out that there is a golf course less than 600 meters from the feeder, with a pond and some reeds, and the weaver seemed to come from this direction when flying into the garden...
I agree that changing plumages to non-breeding only in late winter poses some question.