Breeding male black-headed weavers have a greenish-yellow mantle and back plumage and the pale underpart plumage is suffused with a variable amount of chestnut. The iris is dark brown. The female and non-breeding male do not have the black head and resemble a female masked weaver, except they have dark eyes and a darker bill. There are five subspecies and it appears I saw ssp dimidiatus which is found in northeastern DRC, Uganda, southwestern Kenya, northwestern Tanzania, southeastern Sudan and western Eritrea. Dimidiatus has rich chestnut underparts with yellow restricted to the belly.
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| Found on the hill between Nkima Forest Lodge and the Mabamba Swam on Lake Victoria in Uganda. It was with another bird that has given me fits and which I now think is a female red-headed weaver. |
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| Illustration of ssp dimidiatus from Birds of the World. |
I am really struggling with the weavers as there are many species and the same species can look very much different from each other.
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| Range from Birds of the World. It does show it belongs on the western edge of Lake Victoria in Uganda. |