Camera : Canon EOS 550D
Taken in my garden (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa)
A female African masked-weaver (Ploceus velatus) inspecting a nest to see if it suits her requirements. More often than not, the female will reject the nest and look elsewhere, sending the males into a frenzy of building two or three nests at the same time, sometimes as many as six!
This female was quite impressed with the housing and shortly after her inspection, she flew to the ground, returning with a feather and disappeared inside. the male was ecstatic! He did a little dance on the branch above her, and then joined her inside. How I wish I could have seen what was going on in there!
But the nesting season is all over now, the males have all lost their breeding colours and the garden is strangely quiet with just the odd chirps.
The Southern Masked-Weaver or African Masked-Weaver is a native of sub-Saharan Africa with a short, conical bill. Adult males in breeding plumage have a black face and throat, red eyes, a bright yellow head and under-parts, and yellowish-green upper-parts, whereas females (and non-breeding males) are dull greenish yellow, streaked darker on the upper back, and the throat is yellowish, becoming off-white on the belly, with duller irides. It nests in colonies, like other weavers, and the nests, again like those of other weavers, are woven of reeds, palms or grasses. The Southern Masked-Weaver appears to have established itself locally in parts of northern Venezuela.
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Perfect title for this post! I wish I could haver seen all the frenzied nest-building - sounds like it would be funny to watch. I have something similar here in early May, when the barn swallows arrive. It seems as if they are paired when they arrive, and are out looking for homes together, They chatter away, discussing the pros, cons and possibilities of the nests [there are at least 4 in the barn], and make their selection. And then of course, the late-comers arrive - 3 or 4 more pairs of swallows, and then there is a ferocious amount of territorial bickering and flying in the barn. I am surprised they never hit a beam. But they are settled in now, having families. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Kathryn! What a lovely story! I also have swallows (Greater-striped Swallow) that return every September, but it's the same pair every spring - and last September they brought their 3 babies from that year with them, most unusual. They nested in their old nest again and reared two more babies and the whole crowd left middle-April. I SO look forward to their return every spring! Thanks for sharing your great story!
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