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
MojoStreaming
Wildlife Photo Contest ends May 21, 2021, 11:00 P.M. Est
We are inviting you to submit YOUR photo of wildlife for
a chance to be featured in our promotional calendar The photo we choose for our cover also will receive a $500 cash prize https://www.mojostreaming.com/signup Deadline to submit your photo is May 21, 2021, 11:00 EST Free
to sign up & submit
To kick off our introduction to MojoStreaming, a
Wildlife Community for photographers and filmmakers. We are inviting you to
submit YOUR photo of wildlife for a chance to be featured in our promotional
calendar (a great opportunity to promote your work) The photo we choose for our
cover also will receive $500. It is free to enter and simple to do: Upload your
image by May 21st before 11:00 P.M. EST (National Endangered Species Day) Sign
up & Submit at https://lnkd.in/epesgnf
Once you sign up- all you do is click on the Upload button
and choose the Photo for the calendar album.
PS do not forget to check your spam
folder for an email confirmation.
There is more good news! If your photo is
featured in the calendar - we will send you a free calendar!
ALL entries will be featured on Mojostreaming- a great way to gain additional exposure. To learn
more about us: https://www.mojostreaming.com/static/about
All photos must be original work, taken by the entrants. No
third party may own or control any materials the photo contains, and the photo
must not infringe upon the trademark, copyright, moral rights, intellectual
rights, or rights of privacy of any entity or person.
You
grant to MojoStreaming a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, copy, modify (size), distribute and publish
your photo(s) on our MojoStreaming Website and our Social Media Sites. Your photo(s) may be used for marketing and
promotional purposes. You represent and warrant that you own or have all
necessary rights (including intellectual property rights) to your photo(s)
(including to grant the license above).
Entries
will be judged by the MojoStreaming shareholders. All decisions are final. The Company reserves
the right to disqualify any entry that is deemed inappropriate or does not conform
to stated contest rules.
By
entering the contest, entrants agree that photos submitted can be used by the MojoStreaming
are for marketing purposes and may be featured in our promotional 18-month
calendar.
Submissions
will not be accepted once the deadline lapses: (May 21, 2021, 11:00 p.m. EST)
The
winner will be contacted via the email address sometime between June 1 -4th
provided during entry. If no response is received after five business days, a new winner will be selected, and the previous winner will forfeit all rights to
the prize.
We
will also contact all entries that will be featured in the calendar via the email
address sometime between June-1-4th provided during entry. At this time, we will ask that you provide us
further information about you, and more information about your photography
business/hobby. We will want to feature
information about you and your work so our customers can learn more about the
work you do.
If
you have any questions, please contact Cami Ciotta at cami@mojostreaming.com
