By David Sande

David Sande is a tour guide and passionate birdwatcher based in Uganda. He started birding about ten years ago with the Uganda Birds Guides Club and Nature Uganda, and has since been organizing birdwatching trips in Uganda and Rwanda (through https://www.eastafricantrails.com/ ). He is also a budding photographer currently experimenting with his newly acquired Nikon P950. Spotting the arriving wintering migrants in September after a 6-month absence, and traveling to remote places to score a lifer and/or rare species, are some of David’s favorite birding moments of the year.

The Fox’s Weaver (Ploceus spekeoides) was Uganda’s only endemic bird (we now have two), and yet none of us, the current local birders in Uganda, had ever recorded it. It was nearly a mystery bird, and if it was not that it is featured in the Birds of East Africa field guide, our birdwatching ‘bible’, one would think the bird was a mere hearsay.

I mean, we envied our neighbors, Kenya and Tanzania, who boast of many local endemics, and so we badly wanted to confirm ours. As Uganda, boasting of having Africa’s number one birding spot in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (according to the African birding club), we believe we offer the best birding experience in the region, and yet we cannot record our only endemic??! This was quite unsettling among the birding community.

De-mystifying & rediscovering the Fox’s Weaver

The range of the Fox’s Weaver indicated in the field guide is the remote eastern Uganda, a region that for long had been challenging to reach and explore due to poor road infrastructure and the threat of hostile communities, especially the cattle-rustling Karimojong tribe. Nevertheless, driven by enthusiasm, a number of determined birders from the capital Kampala started making trips to the region as the security and infrastructure were starting to improve. The Fox’s Weaver was still at large.

After several misidentifications, around 2016, a local birding enthusiast in a small village in eastern Uganda claimed to have spotted Fox’s Weavers in the area. When word reached Kampala that a local birder in this remote region had seen the Fox’s Weavers, he was highly doubted, and some skeptics declared it must be a misidentification, like the others before. They/we lacked confidence in a little-known local birder. But then, who knows their birds more than the locals who see them every day?? However, without photo evidence, the local birder would not adequately convince the seasoned birders about this monumental sighting of the Fox’s Weaver!

So, around 2017 or so, some birders opted to follow this up and started making trips to this location in eastern Uganda near Lake Opita, just outside Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve, and the first person took a picture of a Weaver that was eventually confirmed in the birding forums as the Fox’s Weaver. The Fox’s Weaver was finally recorded again in Uganda (the last sighting is said to have been more than 40 years ago).

Where to have the best sightings of the Fox’s Weaver

The rediscovery of the Fox’s Weaver was near Lake Opeta, Pakwi village in Katakwi district. It still offers reliable sightings, and for some birders, the most reliable, with a 90% chance to see the weavers any time of the year. Lately, however, the weavers have been found in Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve with equally good chances of ticking off. To me, this is the best place because, as a reserve, you have uninterrupted birding on the trail. The area adjacent to the airstrip has been productive with Fox’s Weavers spotted on the whistling acacia eating ants off them.

What makes Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve even more special is that it is possibly the best place to find the Karamoja Apalis, Uganda’s second endemic bird. So you have the best chance of scoring two of Uganda’s endemic birds without too much trouble.

Fox’s Weaver ID

A fairly large, stocky weaver with a heavy bill. Male has a black face mask extending from the face downward, yellow eyes, and a dark back. The yellow edge to the coverts is distinct.

Common misidentifications of the Fox’s Weaver

Before the rediscovery, one of the weavers often confused or misidentified as the Fox’s Weaver was the Heuglin’s Masked Weaver. I find the yellow edge to the wing coverts helpful in distinguishing from the similar Speke’s and Heuglin’s Weaver.

Habitat

The Fox’s Weaver lives in wooded grassland near swamps. In Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve, it is mostly seen on whistling acacia picking off ants