Patterns of primary moult in the Weavers, Ploceidae
Patterns of renewal of feathers are poorly known in African birds. Moult is energetically costly and is thus an important part of a bird's annual cycle; moult needs to be fitted in with breeding activities, and in some species, migration. Ringers in southern Africa have been submitting primary moult data to SAFRING, the South African Bird Ringing Unit, since 1998, providing a large amount of data that the author has been curating and checking on an on-going basis as Ringing Coordinator. May main interest is in the weaverbirds and I have ringed several thousand Southern Masked Weavers Ploceus velatus and many other species. Les Underhill and Walter Zucchini developed a statistical model to analyse timing and duration of primary moult in a standardized way in 1988. Primary moult was analysed in the southern African weaverbird family using the Underhill-Zucchini method throughout. In some species, this method was applied to individual feathers as well as the whole wing.
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