Pintailed whydah
The Zulu name is uHlekwane, while in Afrikaans they’re known as koningrooibekkie.
THE pintailed whydah is a common resident over most of South Africa, which is nomadic in winter.
It likes to inhabit the open savanna, grassland, or hillsides with scattered trees and bushes, canefields, farmyards and gardens.
They are gregarious, occur in small flocks of 20 to 30 birds and breeding groups comprise a male and five to six females.
They forage on the ground or at feeding trays, scratching for food by jumping backwards with both feet to scatter the sand. They may also hawk insects in flight.
Breeding males are aggressive to all birds at feeding stations.
In display, they bounce in the air with the tail flipping up and down, moving in a circle around the female. They sing with a high-pitched, sustained jerky song from their perch on a bush, fence or tall grass stalk. The flight call is a ‘tsip tsip’. The pintailed whydah feeds on seeds and insects. They host nests with several other small bird species. They usually lay one to two white eggs along with one to two eggs of the parasite birds.
They are nestlings for about 20 days, with the young of the parasite being raised together with one of the host.
Their long tails of the breeding male can measure from 16mm to 264mm. The Zulu name is uHlekwane, while in Afrikaans they’re known as koningrooibekkie.
