Southern Brown-throated Weaver - BirdForum Opus

Photo © by the late Jan Van den Broeck
St Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Ploceus xanthopterus

Identification

Photo © by Peter Day
St Lucia, Cape Town, South Africa, January 2019

15 cm (6 in)
Breeding adult male: Bright yellow with a chestnut face, and throat; chestnut does not extend onto the forecrown (as it does in Northern Brown-throated Weaver, Rueppell's Weaver and Cape Weaver). The eyes are dull reddish brown.

Distribution

Western Africa: occurs only in Angola
Eastern Africa: Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi
Southern Africa: Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal

Taxonomy

Subspecies

Ploceus xanthopterus has three subspecies:^[1]

• P. x. castaneigula

• Extreme north-eastern Namibia, Caprivi Strip (Namibia), south-western Zambia and northern Botswana

• P. x. xanthopterus

• Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and north-eastern Zimbabwe

• P. x. marleyi

• Extreme southern coastal Mozambique and coastal KwaZulu-Natal (eastern South Africa).

Habitat

Forest and scrub; breeds in reedbeds.

Behaviour

Diet

Their diet consists mostly of seeds, berries, flowers and insects.

Vocalisation

A soft zweek, zweek and a swizzling song.

Breeding

Polygynous and territorial. Males may breed singly or in colonies of up to 300 nests. Builds a rather untidy nest over water in reedbeds; the nest has no entrance tube. Two to three eggs are incubated for 14-17 days by the female. The nestling period is 14-19 days; young are fed by the female only.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2018. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2018. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Hockey, PAR, WRJ Dean, and PG Ryan, eds. 2005. Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa. 7th ed. Cape Town: John Voelcker Bird Book Fund. ISBN 978-0620340533
3. Sinclair, I and P Ryan. 2003. Birds of Africa South of the Sahara. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0691118154
4. Avibase
5. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved February 2019)

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Southern Brown-throated Weaver. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 18 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Southern_Brown-throated_Weaver

External Links

Search for photos of Southern Brown-throated Weaver in the gallery