Red-billed Quelea

Quelea quelea

• Quelea quelea quelea
• Quelea quelea aethiopica
• Quelea quelea lathami

The red-billed Weaver ( Quelea quelea ) is a bird of the family of weaver birds. He lives south of the Sahara, where it is sometimes very often. Its name comes from the red beak of the male ago.

Features

Red-billed weaver be about 12.5 cm in length and 29 g in weight. One recognizes the male to his red beak. In the breeding season it has a black face and red breeding and crown feathers. The simplicity dress is largely identical to the plumage of the female, which is colored beige and has a black face bar. The short beak is silver or gray.

Way of life

Red-billed weavers live and breed in large flocks. They keep mostly in steppes and savannas, but also not shy away from people nearby. In their search for food, they fly long distances every day. Their life expectancy is two to three years.

Reproduction

The breeding season begins with the rainy season, which is territorially different. The courting males weave half, oval nests of grass and straws. Once the female has umbalzte examined the design and the pairing was completed, both partners weave the nest to an end. There the female lays into its two to four pale blue eggs to incubate these twelve days. After the eggs have hatched, they are fed for a few days with caterpillars and protein-rich insects. After this time, ask the parents to mainly on seeds. Fledging the young birds after a nestling period of about two weeks; sexual maturity they gain a life. However, many females die before that time, so many males each year there are no partners.

Food

The diet consists of grass seeds and cereal grains. As soon as the sun rises, they gather to form large flocks and search jointly for a suitable feeding place they inhabit after a successful search immediately. Around noon, they will stay in shady areas near the waters and spend time with preening. It was evening before they go one more time searching for food.

Dissemination

The distribution area of the red-billed weaver covers most of sub-Saharan Africa, except for the rain forest regions and parts of South Africa. They are seen by farmers because of their gluttony as a plague that falls upon cereals and rice fields, and therefore fought solid, for example, in Sudan and South Sudan or 2014 in the Gambia.