Cape and Southern Grey-Headed Sparrows, Yellow Canary and the Southern Masked Weaver
Photo by Willem Kruger, text by Faye Knight
July brings four very well-known birds to the Birdlife Calendar this month! The Cape Sparrow, The Southern Grey-Headed Sparrow, the Yellow Canary and the Southern Masked Weaver.
- The Cape Sparrow is a widespread, endemic and common bird in Southern Africa, extending marginally into Zimbabwe and Angola.
- Often referred to as a “Mossie”, the male and female differ in looks. The male is considered handsome, unstreaked and brightly coloured, with a distinctive black head and throat and a striking white crescent extending from the eye to the ear. The female, while paler in colour, has a light grey head and a pale crescent in a similar shape to the male.
- With their common habitat ranging from grasslands and semi-arid thornveld and scrubland, these little sparrows are often found in gardens, becoming a welcomed companion to many.
- Both the male and female help gather twigs, fluff, and discarded feathers to build their nests in a haphazard structure.
- Usually in monogamous pairs, the Cape Sparrow is a social bird, often found or photographed in nomadic flocks of up to 200 birds.
A fan favourite indeed!
- The Southern Grey-Headed Sparrow, while very similar to the Cape Sparrow, has a name that suggests just how they look! This little bird has a grey head and face with pale grey underparts. Their wings are a reddish-brown colour, with a darker brown closer to the tip of the wing. With the males and females looking alike, this sparrow has a distinctive white spot on its shoulders with a white patch under its tail as well.
- Like the Cape Sparrow, The Southern Grey-Headed Sparrow are also seen fluttering around garden areas. However, they generally prefer savanna woodlands, occupying dry broad-leaved woodland, plantation edges, and cultivated land.
- While foraging takes place mostly on the ground, these sparrows eat seeds, fruit, nectar and insects, and are often in flocks with other granivorous (seed-eating) birds.
- Both the male and female work together to build nests with a simple aggregation of matted grass, leaves, stems, hair and feathers in holes in trees, under roofs or in the abandoned nests of other birds.
Another garden campion of many!
- Yellow Canary belongs to the Finch family, with stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts, and often have colourful plumage, making them easy to spot when birding.
- Males and females differ in plumage. The male has bright yellow underparts, yellow-green upperparts, and a well-marked face pattern, while the female is plain grey brown with streaky underparts, yellowish edges of the wing feathers, and a yellow rump.
- The Yellow Canary is a common, near endemic bird to southern Africa, with its range extending beyond the region only into south-western Angola.
- These little finches are often found residing in arid and semi-arid Karoo shrublands, arid savanna, alpine shrublands, dry grasslands, dry fynbos, renosterveld, and strandveld, as well as dune vegetation, moving when food becomes scarce.
A busy little bird to spot while birding!
Lastly,
- This weaver also considered to be common, found in a wide range of habitats, including shrubland, savanna, grassland, open woodland, inland wetlands and semi-desert areas and in sub-urban gardens and parks.
- The Southern Masked Weaver stays true to its name in how it builds its nest., weaving grasses together to form their nests. Known as colonial nesters, meaning that several birds may nest close together. Birds in the weaver family have some of the most fascinating nesting strategies and structures of any birds in the world.
- Distinctly marked by its red-eye, and lightly streaked green back and pink-brown legs, the breeding male has a black face mask with a narrow black band on the forehead above the bill. The female and juvenile are pale in colour.
- Usually seen alone or in small groups, the Southern Masked Weaver may also form larger flocks, with the same species or with other seed eating species. It eats insects, seeds and nectar, and will come to feeding tables to pinch anything it can get.
