PHOWN (Photos of Weaver Nests; pronounced "phone") is a new ADU Virtual Museum project, where weaver nests or colonies may be photographed and submitted. To take part in this project, you need to register as an ADU participant. Then find weaver nests and take photos and count the nests. Read more details about how to take part by reading here. Any weaver species (Ploceidae family) may be photographed, including introduced populations that breed naturally in the wild.

You can also take part in the other ADU Virtual Museums, all designed by Rene Navarro.

You can view submissions (without being registered) by going here. There are different search possibilities - explore these yourself! There are already 23 records of a variety of southern African weavers. The first one submitted was by Les Underhill of Southern Masked Weavers breeding on a barbed wire fence.

This is a reminder that ringers need to record and submit all recaptures of ringed birds (except same day retraps). This is important for using the SAFRING database for survival analyses. If you have recapture data that you did not submit because it was less than 1 year after ringing, please do submit it. 

Ringers who have submitted data and/or retraps and recoveries recently will have received a link to the summary on the web. Michael Brooks has developed this using google maps as an amazing new tool so that you can see where your birds were ringed and found again.

If you have not seen this new system, please submit your ringing data!

Also you can look at updated longevities of weavers here and click on any ring number on this page to see the SAFRING summary. The weaver with the greatest elapsed time in SAFRINGs database is a Southern Masked Weaver.

Gerrie Horn, a recently qualified ringer, compiled a two page pamphlet to use to tell landowners about ringing when asking them for permission to ring on their property. Gerrie has kindly given permission for this pamphlet to be used by ringers. You would need a colour printer to print copies or you can email the pdf to landowners. The file may be downloaded here.

Birds are unique in having feathers. Ultimately, flight feathers represent the main means of locomotion for most species, and the process and strategy of replacing those feathers is a fascinating and important aspect of bird biology. The ADU is a world leader in the quantitative analysis of moult, because the "Underhill-Zucchini moult model" was developed here in 1987, and there has subsequently been a long history of moult research at the ADU. This new paper is collaboration of Adrian Craig and Bo Bonnievie at Rhodes University with Dieter Oschadleus, who heads up SAFRING at the ADU. The study species is the Southern Red Bishop, and the paper considers the variability in the timing and duration of primary moult across southern Africa.

Craig AJFK, Bonnevie B, Oschadleus HD 2010. Regional patterns in moult and sexual dimorphism of adult Southern Red Bishops Euplectes orix in southern Africa. Ostrich 81: 123–128.

ABSTRACT: Using the SAFRING database and the Underhill-Zucchini model of primary moult, we analysed the timing of wing moult in Southern Red Bishops Euplectes orix in relation to sex and geographical region. Birds from the winter rainfall region in the south-western sector of the Western Cape start the annual moult more than two months before any other population, but there were no significant differences in starting date within the summer rainfall region. There were striking differences in the estimates of moult duration (62–114 d), which did not follow a consistent pattern in relation to sex or geography; annual variation within a region may be an additional factor. Throughout southern Africa, both sexes showed a trend for longer-winged birds to take more time to complete their moult. We suggest that sex, geographical area and possible annual environmental variations may all influence the timing of moult in local populations. In this sexually dimorphic species, males are consistently longer-winged and heavier than females.

The pdf of the paper is available from Dieter Oschadleus.

It is the end of June, meaning it is time to submit ringing data for the last 6 months (and any other outstanding data).

It is necessary to submit all outstanding ringing data every 6 months. You have one month during which to submit, ie anytime during July, once you have entered your data into excel (or a database in SAFRINGs format), and checked the data for accuracy.

If you are not using SAFRINGs excel sheet, note that it is the required format.
Download it here (the top option is most current excel version).

If you want to copy your previous data into SAFRINGs excel file, you will need to re-arrange the columns in your current file to match our excel file, then copy all the columns except don't copy anything over the 'lookup' column. Copy the lookup cell near the top for as many records as you have.