Thanks Larry. The photography is not very good - I was just trying to
tell a story. There are actually 5 species of yellow weavers with black
faces (Ploecus spp.) - the (Southern) Masked, the Lesser Masked, the
Village (formerly Spotted-Backed), the Spectacled & the Cape (which does
not occur in the Lowveld). The females are more drab in colour. Apart
from the Spectacled which is more solitary, they all build nests in
colonies. The species may also be identified by the structures of their
nests, mostly the length of the tunnel at he entrance. Those nests are
about 50m from the road so I will need to go back with my 500mm Sigma to
be sure but on zooming they look like Lesser or Village Weaver nests.
They are parasitised by small Cuckoos, notably the Diederick & Klaus
Cuckoos. I have witnessed this a few times - the whole process takes
only about 10 seconds with the birds in the colony kicking up a hell of
a racket until the Cuckoo has left. There are several other differently
coloured "weaver" species too. There has been a big renaming project of
Southern African birds in the past few years because they had different
names in different countries - they decided on the oldest name. IMHO,
some of the "new" names are stupid but we will just have to get used to
them. The Afrikaans names which are in common use have not changed!
Alan C
On 20-Jan-22 09:40 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
On Jan 20, 2022, at 8:08 AM, Alan C <[email protected]> wrote:
The first image is a heavy crop of a full Sable Dam I took on Dec 24th. Note
the tree at the back overhanging the water. Now, scroll 5 L for another shot
taken on Jan 15th. In a mere 3 weeks a flock of Masked Weavers has managed to
construct a huge colony. An amazing achievement for such small creatures.
That's real productivity!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wisselstroom/51832322454/
Very cool, and if I zoom in I can even see all of the little yellow birds. I
had to look up what a masked weaver was.
Both with the K5 & HD 55-300
Alan C
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