This is the PHOWN network in South Africa. Each quarter degree grid cell which is green has a photographic record for one species of breeding weaver. Those which are blue have records for two to six species. Today, 30 August 2011, there are 252 quarter degree grid cells in which there are records. This is about 12% of the quarter degree grid cells in South Africa.

PHOWN is PHOtos of Weaver Nests. There are 117 species in the weaver bird family and these occur throughout sub-Saharan Africa, northwards along the Nile River valley in Egypt to the Mediterranean region, and eastwards across southern Asia to Indonesia. PHOWN aims to document the breeding ranges of all these species, throughout this area. This is the nest of the Spectacled Weaver, from KwaZulu-Natal. So far the project has georeferenced photographs of the nests of 41 species from 14 countries. The total number of photo records is 1104; although most of the nests are from southern Africa, the overall map of submissions shows that coverage farther afield is developing steadily.

Further information about the project, and also details of how to submit records, are available from the home page of the PHOWN project. PHOWN is one of the ADU's growing family of Virtual Museums. Please help to expand the PHOWN network. Weavers are one of the most fascinating of bird families, but are poorly studied, largely because they occur through countries which do have not large numbers of ornithologists.

Source: Les Underhill (data & maps updated).