Fan-tailed Widowbird (Euplectes axillaris)
About the Fan-tailed Widowbird
The fan-tailed widowbird (Euplectes axillaris), also known as the red-shouldered widowbird, is a species of bird in the family Ploceidae, which is native to grassy and swampy areas of the tropical and subtropical Afrotropics. It is found in Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. There are five accepted races: E. a. subsp. bocagei (Sharpe, 1871) – West Africa from Mali to CAR and DRC, and southwards to the Caprivi Strip, Okavango and upper Zambezi regions. E. a. subsp. phoeniceus (Heuglin, 1862) – East Africa (Sudan to upland Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi)
No audio on this page yet
We only publish recordings we may use commercially, because this site is supported by ads. xeno-canto lists 8 recordings for this species: 1 CC BY-NC-SA. None of them permits commercial use, so there is no player here — the page is kept as a profile so the bird is not missing from the guide.
As soon as someone uploads a freely licensed recording, we mirror it and the player appears here.
Listed as recorded in Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia in the xeno-canto catalogue.
Related species you can hear
- Yellow BishopEuplectes capensisrecording
This species has no recording here yet — these relatives do, so you can hear what the family sounds like.