All species › Passerines › Weavers › Montane Widowbird
Montane Widowbird | Euplectes psammacromius
Reichenows widavink | Obispo Montano
The Montane Widowbird is a montane widowbird of the high grasslands of south-western Tanzania and the Nyika Plateau. The breeding male is black with a long, broad tail and a yellow shoulder patch with a broad buff lower border. In the region it is a Nyika speciality.
Voice
A sizzling, scratchy twitter and a dry rasping chizz-chizz from the male, mainly in the early morning and evening. Flocks give a short chik.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
Female about 15–16 cm; breeding male about 17–18 cm without the tail and about 25–30 cm with it. The breeding male is wholly black with a long, broad, slightly arched tail; the lesser coverts form a bright yellow shoulder patch, and the median coverts a broad buff to cinnamon band below it. The bill is blue-grey. The female is buff-brown with heavy dark streaking above, a pale supercilium, a finely streaked breast and a short tail. The non-breeding male resembles the female but is larger and keeps the yellow-and-buff shoulder. Juveniles resemble the female.
Confusion species
The Marsh Widowbird (Euplectes hartlaubi) lives lower down in marshes and has a more orange shoulder patch. The White-Winged Widowbird (Euplectes albonotatus) has a white wing patch and a shorter tail. The Yellow-Mantled Widowbird (Euplectes macroura) has a yellow mantle and a shorter tail. The Red-Collared Widowbird (Euplectes ardens) on Nyika has a red throat band and a narrow tail. Females and non-breeding birds are barely separable in the field from other widowbirds and are best identified by size and the company of males.
Habitat
Open montane grassland, mostly above 1800 m, with tussocks of tall grass, damp hollows, vleis and marsh edges. Males defend their territories mainly just after sunrise and before sunset. Outside the breeding season it forms flocks in the grassland. It eats grass seeds and insects.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region only on the Nyika Plateau in northern Malawi and the adjoining Zambian part of Nyika in eastern Zambia, possibly also in other high grasslands in the far north of Malawi. Beyond the region in the highlands of south-western Tanzania, from Mbeya and Kitulo to the Udzungwa and Iringa highlands.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On the Nyika Plateau in the rains, December to March, along the tracks across the grassland around Chelinda: the black, yellow-shouldered males perch on grass tussocks or fly low over the grass with the tail hanging heavily. In the dry season the brown flocks are much harder to find and identify.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Restricted to montane grassland, but common on the Nyika Plateau and in the Tanzanian highlands; overgrazing, too-frequent burning and conversion of grassland to crops may be a local threat.
Scientific name
Euplectes psammacromius | (Reichenow, 1900)
Reichenow described the species in 1900 as Penthetria psammocromia; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Euplectes was introduced in 1829 by Swainson. Euplectes joins Greek eu 'fine, good' to New Latin plectes 'weaver'. psammacromius comes from the Greek psammos, 'sand', and akrōmion, 'shoulder' — for the sandy-buff edge of the yellow shoulder patch. The specimen the first description was based on came from Tandala, Ukinga, south-western Tanzania.