Red-billed quelea Red-billed quelea The red-billed quelea (; "Quelea quelea"), also known as the red-billed weaver or red-billed dioch, is a small—approximately long and weighing —migratory, sparrow-like bird of the weaver family, Ploceidae, native to Sub-Saharan Africa. It was named by Linnaeus in 1758, who considered it a bunting, but Ludwig Reichenbach assigned it in 1850 to the new genus "Quelea". Three subspecies are recognised, with "Quelea quelea quelea" occurring roughly from Senegal to Chad, "Q. q. aethiopica" from Sudan to Somalia and Tanzania, and "Q. q. lathamii" from Gabon to Mozambique and South Africa. Non-breeding birds have light underparts, striped brown
Red-billed quelea quelea needs of precipitation to breed, with nest building usually commencing four to nine weeks after the onset of the rains. Nests are usually built in stands of thorny trees such as umbrella thorn acacia ("Vachellia tortilis"), blackthorn ("Senegalia mellifera") and sicklebush ("Dichrostachys cinerea"), but sometimes in sugar cane fields or reeds. Colonies can consist of millions of nests, in densities of 30,000 per ha (12,000 per acre). Over 6000 nests in a single tree have been counted. At Malilangwe in Zimbabwe one colony was long and wide. In southern Africa, suitable branches are stripped of leaves a few days