Thick-billed Weaver 4H16349 was ringed as an adult female by Mark Brown on 2001-03-19 at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg. It has been recaptured at the same site seven times, the last time being on 2011-05-25, making it at least 10 years 2 months 6 days old.
A second adult female, 4H16364, was retrapped on the same day, having being ringed 6 months later than 4H16349, making it the second oldest Thick-billed Weaver in SAFRINGs database.

Mark says: "these two birds were netted by Minke Witteveen and Dominoc Rollinson, two trainee ringers, 40m from my office where I can keep an eye on them! We put all the swept up seed from the UKZN Aviaries out for the birds and are visited mostly by Thickbilled Weavers, Laughing Doves, Redeyed Doves and Greyheaded Sparrows."

To see the greatest elasped times for southern African weavers, see here.

Photo: female Thick-billed Weaver