Black-winged Red Bishop
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| Black-winged Red Bishop | ||||||||||||||
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| Euplectes hordeaceus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
The Black-winged Red Bishop (Euplectes hordeaceus) is a resident breeding bird species in tropical Africa from Senegal to Sudan and south to Angola and Tanzania.
This common weaver occurs in a range of open country, especially tall grassland and often near water. It builds a spherical woven nest in tall grass. 2-4 eggs are laid.
The Black-winged Red Bishop is a stocky 13-15cm bird. The breeding male is scarlet apart from his black face, belly and wings and brown tail. The conical bill is thick and black. He displays prominently, singing high-pitched twitters from tall grass, puffing out his feathers or performing a slow hovering display flight.
The non-breeding male is yellow-brown, streaked above and shading to whitish below. It has a whitish supercilium. It resembles non-breeding male Northern Red Bishop, but is darker and has black wings. Females are similar, but paler. Young birds have wider pale fringes on their flight feathers.
The Black-winged Red Bishop is a gregarious species which feeds on seed, grain and some insects.
Reference
- Birds of The Gambia by Barlow, Wacher and Disley, ISBN 1-873403-32-1