The white ring around the waterbuck’s hindquarters has led to many tales. A favorite is that they were the first animals to use the toilet on Noah’s Ark. The newly-installed toilet seats on the ark were still wet with paint and left a distinctive white ring on their rumps. Despite these bucks being a part of the ‘butt joke’, there are valid reasons for the white markings on their hindquarters. Flashes of color often scare off predators and act as a ‘follow me’ sign, helping other waterbucks flee when in danger.
Waterbuck are sexually dimorphic, meaning males and females have external differences apart from their reproductive organs.
Males can be up to 25% larger than their female counterparts and they carry the defining feature of beautiful, long, ringed horns.
These horns curve backward and then forward and vary in length from 55 cm to 99 cm. The age of the bull determines the length of the horns.
Waterbuck horns will begin to develop at around 8 to 9 months and mark the young buck’s time to separate from the herd. Young males form bachelor groups remain together until they mature and move on to make their own herd. Waterbucks’ diets are rich in protein and other nutrients. This includes coarse grasses that are seldom eaten by other plain animals and long sweet grasses like buffalo grass.
During the dry season, they supplement their diet by browsing on leaves from shrubs and certain trees, such as the Sweet thorn (Vachellia karroo). At times, you will find them shoulder-deep in water, eating roots and other aquatic plants.
They also enjoy browsing on certain fruits, especially the marula fruit during the ripe season. These antelope typically eat in the mornings and late afternoons and chew cud for the remainder of the day.
These herbivorous animals have remarkably high water requirements. They need to drink often, which is one reason why they remain close to permanent water points at all times. You’ll often find them nestled in reed beds near rivers and dams, or on floodplains.
Common waterbuck are social animals. They live in herds or groups of up to 12. Male antelopes are dominant over a certain territory, and their herd consists of females, young bachelors, and calves.
The herds are constantly changing, as individuals can join or leave at any time, provided there aren’t other males looking to dominate the territory.
When a bachelor threatens the territory of a herd leader, the dominant male will posture aggressively and even start a fight if necessary. These fights can be fatal, as the waterbuck uses its long, strong horns in combat.
Typically, a waterbuck will live up to 18 years in the wild. In general, 12-15 years is a good life for a wild waterbuck. @GodfreytheGuide #Antelope #https://www.instagram.com/p/CQo-ZP4gIwZ/?utm_medium=copy_link
Bigodi wetland sanctuary, Uganda, 2017.
The Village Weaver is one of the most common, widespread weaver species. It is larger than most weavers, with red eyes in both sexes and a heavy black bill. The breeding male has the head mainly black, the nape, hindneck and breast below the black throat are chestnut. The back is spotted yellow. The breeding female is yellow below, and whiter on belly. The non-breeding birds are duller than the breeding female.
The Village Weaver inhabits bushy savanna, riverine woodland, wetlands, cultivated areas, rural villages, urban and suburban gardens, and villages and clearings in the forest. It is frequently associated with human habitation in west and central Africa. It is absent from arid regions, dense forests, and miombo woodland.
Its diet is seeds, including grass seeds and cultivated cereals. It is regarded as a pest in rice-growing areas, and also damages maize, sorghum and durra crops. It also feeds on fruit, nectar, and insects, such as beetles, ants, termites and their alates, grasshoppers, mantids, caterpillars, and bugs. It forages by gleaning vegetation, including tree trunks.
The Village Weaver is gregarious, being found in large flocks and in the non-breeding period joins large communal roosts.
It is highly colonial, with more than 200 nests in a single tree and colonies in excess of 1000 nests. The Village Weaver is polygynous, with up to five females simultaneously on the territory of a male, and up to seven during a season. Females may change mates in a season. Larger colonies appear to be more attractive to females, with a higher proportion of females per male.
When females enter a colony, males hang below their nest entrances while giving nest-invitation calls and flapping their wings to show the yellow underwings. The nest is spherical, sometimes with a very short entrance tunnel. The nest is woven by the male within a day, generally from strips torn from reed or palm leaves.
The male often includes a ceiling layer of broad leaves. The female lines an accepted nest with leaves, grass-heads and some feathers. Nests are suspended from drooping branches. A single male may build more than 20 nests in a season, and unused or old nests are regularly destroyed to make space for new nests. Empty nests may be occupied by other animals, including snakes, wasps, mice and bats, and nests may be used for breeding by a wide variety of species including Cut-throat Finches.
The eggs are white, pale green or blue, either plain or variably marked with red-brown speckling. Incubation is by the female only, for about 12 days. The chicks are usually fed by the female alone, but males in some parts help. Female Village Weavers recognize their own egg pattern, which is constant throughout her life, and discriminate against non-matching eggs. Nest predators include snakes, especially boomslang Dispholidus typus, monkeys and baboons, crows and raptors.
The longevity record is 14 years in the wild.
#Birdifeastafrica
#Earthshots
#Visitugandarwandatanzania.
TODAY at 1
pm EST (5 PM GMT), our in house
host, Cathleen Trigg-Jones, (www.iwomantv.com)
will do a live interview with Dr. Louise de Waal of Blood Lions, an organization that exposed the incredibly cruel practice of canned lion hunting
with their award-winning film of the same name. The focus of the interview will
be the proposed new legislation in South Africa to govern all Wildlife farming,
especially Lion farming. The interview will be followed by a Q&A. The link
to the meeting is
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84122462668?pwd=cjBCZ2tTU1NBbTcvQVdmYmo3Vytmdz09
Please
contact Cami at cami@mojostreaming.com
if you are interested in being featured or interviewed by Mojostreaming
