Weavers & Allies

Weavers are famous for the intricacy of the knots they make with green grass, resulting, once dried, in remarkably robust and coherent structures. Beyond the nests, themselves, though, this is a fascinating group, with some of the most diverse social and mating systems of any passerine groups. Coloniality is common in these birds, but the most impressive colonial passerines are surely the red-billed queleas, which move across the seasonally unpredictable landscape of southern Africa in search of sufficient germinating grasses to fuel a breeding attempt. They may descend on the woods and fields, making overnight a colony of 30 million nests, and going through their entire breeding cycle in as little as 40 days before moving on.