Red-Billed Quelea

The red-billed quelea is a weaver, also known as the red-billed weaver and red-billed dioch.  I saw them in Kidepo Valley NP in northern Uganda. It is small, about the size of a sparrow. Breeding males have a black facial mask surrounded by a purplish, pinkish, rusty or yellowish wash on the head and breast. Breeding females have a yellowish bill. Non-breeding males and females have striped brown upper parts, yellow-edged flight feathers, a reddish bill and light underparts. It is the most numerous undomesticated bird on earthwith an estimated 1.5 billion breeding birds. It feeds in huge flocks of millions of individuals and is sometimes referred to as "Africa's feathered locust." 

A breeding male with black facial mask and yellowish wash on head and breast. 

Breeding females have a yellowish bill. 

Illustration of male from Birds of the World.

Illustration of female from Birds of the World.

There are three subspecies and I saw ssp. aethiopica which is found in southern Sudan, eastern South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea south to northeast DRC, Uganda, Kenya, central and eastern Tanzania and northwestern and southern Somalia. 

Range map from Birds of the World.