Bird of the Week – Yelloweyed canary

A common resident confined to South East, North East and North of South Africa, all of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the North Eastern of Namibia and Botswana.

These canaries are found in pairs or small family groups when breeding and gregarious in flocks of 20 to 30 birds. They like any woodland, thornveld, riverine bush, gardens, parks and exotic plantations. Their food preference being seeds, insects, flowers and hibiscus leaves. Foraging on the ground or in bushes and trees, they may hawk insects in the air. When they are disturbed they take off for nearest bushes with a bouncing flight and tweety callnotes.

LISTEN:

Males sing from conspicuous perches with a whistled chirp, tseeu or tswirri and often several males singing in concert chasing each other aggressively. Breeding season is September to April. The nest is a small cup of grass, herbs and roots bound with spider web and lined with fine rootlets. Usually built from one to six metres above ground in the fork of a tree, bush or creeper. Three to five white or pale blue eggs speckled with pink or brown are laid. Incubation is 13 to 14 days and they are nestlings from 16 to 24 days.

The Zulu name is umBhalane and Afrikaans die geeloogkanarie.

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