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Tanzanian Masked Weaver | Ploceus reichardi
Reichards wever | Tejedor de Reichard
The Tanzanian Masked Weaver is a masked weaver of the swamps of south-western Tanzania that, within the region, reaches only the far north-east of Zambia. The breeding male is yellow with a black mask framed by a chestnut border. It is one of the least known weavers in the guide and a genuine speciality for visitors to the wetlands of northern Zambia.
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Voice
A rapid, rasping, sizzling chatter in the manner of other masked weavers, a chirr-chirr-zwizzizwee, sung while the male hangs on or below the nest with quivering wings. The contact call is a short chuk. A breeding colony produces a continuous hubbub.
Recording: Joe Ndekia — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm; a medium-sized masked weaver with a fairly heavy black bill. The breeding male is bright yellow on head and underparts, with a black mask over forehead, face and throat; along the upper edge of the mask on the crown and below the throat on the breast runs a chestnut wash. The back is yellow-green with dark streaking, wings and tail dark with yellow edges. The eye is reddish. The female and non-breeding male are olive-green and streaked above, yellowish on throat and breast and whitish on the belly, with a horn-coloured bill. Juveniles resemble the female. Breeding males are recognisable by the framed mask; females can hardly be told in the field from those of related weavers.
Confusion species
Katanga Masked Weaver (Ploceus katangae) of the Luapula and Lake Mweru is smaller, with a less pronounced chestnut border and a plainer back; in Zambia the two ranges meet rather than overlap. Southern Masked Weaver (Ploceus velatus) lacks the chestnut edge to the mask and lives in drier woodland. Lesser Masked Weaver (Ploceus intermedius) has a pale eye and a mask that extends over the crown. Village Weaver (Ploceus cucullatus) is larger, with a heavily black-spotted back. Slender-Billed Weaver (Ploceus pelzelni) is smaller and clearly thinner-billed. For females and non-breeding birds the locality often settles it.
Habitat
Papyrus and reed swamps, floodplains and rank growth along lake shores and rivers, and adjacent bushes and grain fields. It breeds in colonies; the nests hang in reeds, papyrus or low bushes over or close to water. It eats seeds, including grain, and insects.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region only in north-eastern Zambia, in the swamps and floodplains near the Tanzanian border, especially around Lake Mweru Wantipa. Beyond the region it is confined to south-western Tanzania, with the Lake Rukwa basin as its core.
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best in the rains, when breeding males sing at the colonies. Search reed fringes and papyrus edges where nests hang over the water. Because the species is barely separable from other weavers outside the breeding season, only well-seen breeding males showing the chestnut frame to the mask, combined with locality, are conclusive.
Conservation status
Not threatened; its small range lies largely in little-disturbed wetlands. Locally it may suffer from wetland drainage, reed harvesting and the burning of marginal vegetation.
Scientific name
Ploceus reichardi | Reichenow, 1886
Reichenow described the species in 1886 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Ploceus was introduced in 1816 by Cuvier, GLCFD. Ploceus comes from the Greek plokeus, 'plaiter, weaver', for the tightly woven, ball-shaped nest that gives weavers their name. reichardi honours the German explorer Paul Reichard (1854–1938), who travelled and collected in East and Central Africa between 1880 and 1884. The specimen the first description was based on came from Karema, east shore of Lake Tanganyika (Tanzania).