Taking part in PHOWN - help menu

  1. What you need and registration
  2. Counting weaver colonies
  3. Resizing photos
  4. Obtaining correct coordinates
  5. Uploading photos and data
  6. Upload problems
  7. Viewing accepted records
  8. Corrections and coordinates
  9. Repeat counts
  10. Video PHOWN

PHOWN (Photos of Weaver Nests)

PHOWN (PHOtos of Weaver Nests) is a monitoring project aimed at determining the distribution of colonies or nests of all weaver species globally. Counting weaver nests and taking photos allows tracking of changes in weaver breeding effort. This includes long-term changes in individual weaver bird colonies. The data can also be used to look at colony changes within a breeding season and other breeding information like nest site choice, and extent of mixed species colonies. Many weavers are common and this project provides an easy way of monitoring them, while some weaver species are threatened and this project would help their conservation.

Quick questions:
Which species are included in PHOWN? All weavers in the family Ploceidae, see species list here.

Which countries are included in PHOWN? All countries where weavers breed in the wild, including introduced populations, but excluding captive birds.

Can photos taken in previous years be submitted? Yes, if you know the date and exact locality of the nests.

What is an ADU Virtual Museum? The ADU use of the term "museum" is not to be interpreted as the display part of a museum that is open to the public. The real museum consists of endless drawers full of neatly catalogued specimens (date, place, species, collector), with lots of replicates of a single species - these are the specimens used for research into distribution, taxonomy, etc. The ADU's museums are "virtual" as they contain digital images of specimens. For example, a picture of every Sociable Weaver nest on a telephone pole in the Northern Cape, together with the date and place and photographer, could be submitted to neatly catalogue in our database.

Will I see my photos in the Virtual Museum immediately after submission? It will be visible as soon as the Project Coordinator has accepted the record - this will typically be within one day for PHOWN.

If I have nest records without photos, can I submit them? You cannot submit these records to the Virtual Museum but you can email them to the Project Coordinator. Get an excel form here.

I found an error in a previous submission; what do I do? Email the details to the Project Coordinator who will correct the errors.