- Olive-headed Weaver
 - Olive-headed Weaver
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Olive-headed Weaver Ploceus olivaceiceps Scientific name definitions

H. Dieter Oschadleus
Version: 2.0 — Published February 23, 2023
Revision Notes

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Introduction

The Olive-headed Weaver is restricted to open miombo (Brachystegia) woodland, resulting in a highly fragmented distribution in the eastern parts of Africa. The core of its range is in Malawi, with small, scattered populations in Tanzania, eastern Zambia, and Mozambique.

Both the English and scientific names of the Olive-headed Weaver refers to the female, which has an olive-green head and mantle. In contrast, the male has a yellow crown and olive face. Both sexes are bright yellow below with an orange-brown patch on the throat and breast, which is brighter in the male. The plumage is the same all year round.

This weaver depends on Brachystegia forests for foraging and nesting. Olive-headed Weaver is unobtrusive, feeding in the mid-level and canopy of Brachystegia trees. It has a slender bill adapted to probing and gleaning insects. It searches bark, leaf clusters, and, in particular, Usnea lichens along branches and tree trunks. Branches are searched in a circular manner by hopping and rotating around branches; birds may hang upside down and move either upwards or downwards along trunks. An individual may spend a fair amount of time foraging in a tree before flying to a different tree. This foraging technique qualifies the Olive-headed Weaver as a "nuthatch-weaver." The diet includes invertebrates such as the larvae of butterflies and moths, leaf and bark beetles, plant hoppers, spittlebugs, and small parasitic wasps. It usually forage singly or in pairs, but will also often join mixed-species bird parties, including with woodhoopoes, woodpeckers, cuckooshrikes, orioles, crombecs, hyliotas, and creepers.

Olive-headed Weaver is monogamous, and pairs may stay together all year. Both sexes build the nest which is constructed entirely of Usnea lichen. Although other weaver species use lichen in their nests, Olive-headed Weaver is the only weaver to use lichen exclusively. The nest location is also unique, as nests are placed under branches midway along their length and are built into existing, living lichen clumps. Both sexes incubate, but the female considerably more than the male. Occasionally, the male brings food to the sitting female, while at other times, both fly off to forage together.

The habitat of the Olive-headed Weaver is severely threatened by logging for timber, firewood, and slash-and-burn agriculture. It occurs in few national parks, but several forest reserves in Malawi. BirdLife International upgraded the Red Data classification of Olive-headed Weaver to Near Threatened in 2016, due to an apparent decline in the numbers of this species.

Distribution of the Olive-headed Weaver - Range Map
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  • Year-round
  • Migration
  • Breeding
  • Non-Breeding
Distribution of the Olive-headed Weaver

Recommended Citation

Oschadleus, H. D. (2023). Olive-headed Weaver (Ploceus olivaceiceps), version 2.0. In Birds of the World (G. D. Engelbrecht, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.olhwea1.02