ZSL London Zoo weaverbird ID

I don't know much about them either but can only find one species that match: Giant Weaver, Ploceus grandis. Only a few weavers have light eyes and of them the Giant Weaver is the only with black head (including crown) surrounded by brown. Also big bill. But this species only on island Sao Tome and perhaps not in captivity? Northern Masked Weaver has yellow crown and dark eyes. If not Giant then a hybrid or aberrant individual are the only thing I think it can be. (bad) photo of Giant BirdQuest | GABON, SÃO TOMÉ & PRÍNCIPE
 
I remember there being Village Weavers near the entrance a few year ago, nobody's mentioned them though so the species must have changed.
 
Damn! I never looked. It should be a village weaver but it doesn't look right.
 
There are so many species of weavers that they are a very difficult group. However I have the ZSL Inventory for 2005 and the only weavers are village weavers (Ploceus cucullatus) and red-billed Quelea - so Zoomania must be right.

Alan
 
gentle lemur said:
There are so many species of weavers that they are a very difficult group. However I have the ZSL Inventory for 2005 and the only weavers are village weavers (Ploceus cucullatus) and red-billed Quelea - so Zoomania must be right.

Alan
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Females are difficult but this is a male and they are much easier. If this is a Village Weaver it is very aberrant. Village Weavers have dark red eyes and distinct dark marks on the back. Very different from white eyes and nearly plain back of bird on Chlidonias photo. If it is pure only the Giant match but I guess hybrid or aberrant is much more likely.
 
condor said:
Very different from white eyes and nearly plain back of bird on Chlidonias photo.
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note that its not my photo, I'm just drawing attention to it so that it can get a correct ID :)

Having seen photos of the species, I agree it does look very like the giant weaver and not like a village weaver. Could it be a young male village weaver -- do they look different to mature ones?
 
Hey everyone,


I actually visited ZSL around the same time and spend some time in front of the aviary as I have some special interest in weaverbirds (trying to breed with several species). And at that time I only saw village weavers from this genus (ploceus)in the zoo. This is one as well but just in a ****** condition.
I must admit that for such a facility ZSL takes no effort to breed weaverbirds at all. There quelea's and steelfinches are housed with agapornis nigris so no breeding there. And the euplectes hordeacus they have now in the aviary where they used to have the villageweavers contains way many mails and the wrong plant species in the cage for any breeding effort in the near future.
 
And to add, I haven't seen any giant weavers in Europe for ages. I know that in private hands quite some people still try to get them breeding also with some surprising species, but giant weavers sorry not imported a lot in the past and none surviving here at all.
 
Thanks

I really appreciate your efforts to identificate the bird on my photo. Thanks (especially thanks to Chlidonias who started this thread). I must admit that i hadn't thought of the possibilty that is might be a village weaver. Quite embarrasing since that's a bird I've seen several times and have other photos of. But after I've looked at my other photos I'm not that very ashamed anymore. As you guys have pointed out, this one doesn't really look like a village weaver, not those I've seen anyway. I've uploaded a another photo of a known village weaver to compare with.

 
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