Taxonomy/Origins: The Pintail Whydah can be found in the bottom half of the African continent south of the sahara.
Subspecies: There are no sub species to my knowledge.
Plumage Colouration: In the non breeding season both sexes are alike, small, brown streaked and typical waxbill size and shape. The young are unstreaked olive on the back and wings and a lighter grey breast area, this is lost at about 10 weeks when the young change and resemble the female. It is in the breeding season when the dramatic transformation occurs.The male sheds his somber colour to change to a striking black and white feathered bird. To add to this he grows 4 long ribbon like tail feathers approx. 7 to 8 inches long by nearly 1/2 in wide. These are his display props to attract and possibly give him a chance to mate. Because of the change they are easily sexed.
Feeding: Their diet is very basic, a simple finch seed mix made up of mainly small millet seeds. I can't recall ever seeing them at the live food tray. They love to search for food on the ground and scratch around like miniture chickens. This leads to possibly the main vice of the male bird, should you throw a hand full of grain on the floor of your aviary he will defend the feed area for his females by dive bombing any species which may wander into this place, large or small.
Housing: If housed in a cage the long beautiful tail soon becomes badly damaged and the chances of breeding this handsome bird is virtually nil. They need a large aviary to enable them to display to the hen. The display to the hen is quite an energetic effort. The male will virtually hover in front of the female. He bounces up and down in mid air with his long tail feathers looking like 4 black ribbons. The female will move around and the poor male follows whilst doing his strength sapping dance. If she wants to mate she lowers her self and the male hovers right to her, lands and mating takes place. Generally she will fly away and he will remain, some times for 10 mins to recover. I have watched this performance many times and I still watch in amazement.
Breeding: To breed Pintails is not easy. The main reason is that this whydah is parasitic. The female lays her egg in another birds (host) nest and that bird will rear the chick along with hers. The host species is the Saint Helena Waxbill. If you can breed Saint Helenas you are at least on the way. The plan goes like this: Get the female whydah into breeding condition have the male mate with her (1st.base), in the mean time you will have several pairs of Saint Helenas ready to lay eggs in their own nests as the Whydah is ready to lay as well. If this happens you are really on the way( 2nd base). Then you hope the female saint Helena will not object to the interferance and hatch and feed both types of nestlings(3rd.base). Finally the chick will fledge and become independant (home run). Sounds daunting but there are a couple of tricks and steps which make it very possible. I keep my saints in a bare aviary with out any nesting sites or nesting material. The male whydah should already be in colour and eager. The hen bird is the key, the pair are in the aviary you want to have them breed in. Watch the females beak, when she is in condition and ready to breed her red beak will go black. This is when you release the 10 or so pairs of Saint Helenas in to the breeding aviary making sure there are plenty of nest sites. Finally throw in a large arm full of fine meadow grass and stand back.The Saint Helenas will start building within hours of gaining the nesting material. Sit back and eagerly watch each nest that fledges, you will notice the young Pintail immediately, not because of the lack of the red eye brow but they look and sound so different yet the foster parents keep feeding them.
Hints/tips: This bird is not easy to breed so experienced breeders are the ones who should consider the challenge. In Australia we have a good aviary bred strain, but to us it is still not easy.
Unique Characteristics: As I mentioned before, to really appreciate this bird a large aviary would be preferable.
Extra: Other countries must start working on producing aviary bred stains because imports can't continue for ever and this specie will dissappear rapidly.
Feel free to get in touch with any further questions. You can contact me via the FF Forum my username is 'David Holmes'.
