The Chestnut Weaver Ploceus rubiginosus is a seasonal nomad of arid regions – and a species that I have long wanted to observe and photograph at the nest. Finally, in the summer of 2017, my wish was granted in Namibia’s Erongo Conservancy.
There are two subspecies of Chest-nut Weaver in Africa: P. r. trothae is found in northern and central Namibia, north-western Botswana and southern Angola, while the nominate subspecies occurs in eastern Africa from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia to Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
In Namibia, this weaver breeds mostly in the open, semi-arid savanna of the Namibian escarpment and during the wet season between December and May, but with a peak from January to March. It needs an adequate mix of suitable grasses for nest building and a proliferation of insects to feed to the chicks, so breeding activity can be patchy and irruptive throughout its range. When summers are dry, the birds are mostly absent.
A polygynous species, the Chestnut Weaver usually breeds in huge colonies that may number as many as 200 nests in a single tree or are sometimes distributed over many adjacent trees, each with 40 to 100 nests. This is what we encountered – large numbers of males in full breeding dress, building their nests and chattering and ‘swizzling’ as they actively advertised them to the attendant females.
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Esta historia es de la edición Sep/oct 2017 de African Birdlife.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS
Keith Barnes, co-author of the new Field Guide to Birds of Greater Southern Africa, chats about the long-neglected birding regions just north of the Kunene and Zambezi, getting back to watching birds and the vulture that changed his life.
footloose IN FYNBOS
The Walker Bay Diversity Trail is a leisurely hike with a multitude of flowers, feathers and flavours along the way.
Living forwards
How photographing birds helps me face adversity
CAPE crusade
The Cape Bird Club/City of Cape Town Birding Big Year Challenge
water & WINGS
WATER IS LIFE. As wildlife photographer Greg du Toit knows better than most.
winter wanderer
as summer becomes a memory in the south, the skies are a little quieter as the migrants have returned to the warming north. But one bird endemic to the southern African region takes its own little winter journey.
when perfect isn't enough
Egg signatures and forgeries in the cuckoo-drongo arms race
Southern SIGHTINGS
The late summer period naturally started quietening down after the midsummer excitement, but there were still some classy rarities on offer for birders all over the subregion. As always, none of the records included here have been adjudicated by any of the subregion's Rarities Committees.
flood impact on wetland birds
One of the features of a warming planet is increasingly erratic rainfall; years of drought followed by devastating floods. Fortunately, many waterbirds are pre-adapted to cope with such extremes, especially in southern Africa where they have evolved to exploit episodic rainfall events in semi-arid and arid regions. But how do waterbirds respond to floods in areas where rainfall - and access to water - is more predictable? Peter Ryan explores the consequences of recent floods on the birds of the Western Cape's Olifants River valley.
a star is born
It’s every producer’s dream to plan a wildlife television series and pick the right characters before filming.
