Holub's Golden-Weaver

We were in Kidepo Valley NP in northern Uganda in July 2025 with a great guide, William. While traversing a road relatively near the Kidepo Airport William called out a very small yellow weaver, a Holub's golden weaver. I put it on iNaturalist and rjq, the 5th highest identifier of Holub's golden weaver, with 3,649 identifications, disagreed. I kind of gave up on it until recently when I decided I needed to either figure out what kind of a bird it is, figure out why it might be such a weaver, or just remove it from my lifer list. As I looked at photos of Holub's golden weavers and my photo, the thing that really stood out is the eyes. The photos of Holub's golden weavers have distinctive eyes, with a yellow iris and a dark pupil. My photo had a dark iris. I thought that killed my identification. But then I looked for immature birds and found that their eyes are "dark brown" (per Wikipedia and Birds of the World). I went back to iNaturalist and threw out that insight, but so far no responses. So, at least for now, I'm sticking with the identification, but it is hard to go against someone with 3,649 identifications. 

Illustration of a female from Birds of the World. 

Illustration of a male from Birds of the World. 

It otherwise seems to match the description. There is a photo in Birds of the World that shows one with the dark stripe extending from the eye to the back of the head, which was another potential distinguishing feature. 

Range from Birds of the World.