Red-billed quelea sound due to the many wing beats. After arriving at the roost or nest site, birds keep moving around and make a lot of noise for about half an hour before settling in. Both males and females call. The male sings in short bursts, starting with some chatter, followed by a warbling "tweedle-toodle-tweedle". The red-billed quelea is mostly found in tropical and subtropical areas with a seasonal semi-arid climate, resulting in dry thornbush grassland, including the Sahel, and its distribution covers most of sub-Saharan Africa. It avoids forests, however, including miombo woodlands and rain forests such as those in central
Red-billed quelea from northern and central Sudan and central Ethiopia in May and June, to breed in southern Sudan, South Sudan, southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya, moving back north from August to October. In southern Africa, the total population of the subspecies "Q. quelea lathamii" in October converges on the Zimbabwean Highveld. In November, part of the population migrates to the northwest to northwestern Angola, while the remainder migrates to the southeast to southern Mozambique and eastern South-Africa, but no proof has been found that these migration cohorts are genetically or morphologically divergent. The red-billed quelea is regarded as the most numerous