The Baya weaver 💚
#intothewildwithrufus #birding
#bayaweaver
27th August 2026
Today in the course of our early morning
birding adventures, we chanced upon the beautiful Baya Weaver – famously known
as the greatest architect of the animal kingdom.
The Baya Weavers are indeed master weavers.
And guess what? 😊
This is the time of the year (the monsoon season in India) when the Baya weavers start building their beautiful and intricate nests.
Added, in many bird species, females build the
nest or both partners share the work. However, as regards the Baya weaver, it is the male who
does almost all the building, and the females act as a mere building inspector.
It is said that, a single male can make up
to 500 trips to complete just one nest, meticulously tying knots and weaving
the fibres tightly together so that the structure can withstand even strong
monsoon winds.
The male builds the nest halfway - stopping
midway, at what is called the “helmet stage” (a dome with two holes). He then
hangs from his half-finished construction, flapping his wings to attract a
passing female.
The female now proceeds to inspect the
nest, checking its location (preferring high branches over water) and the
tightness of the weave.
If she rejects it, the male will either
abandon it or tear it down to start over. If she accepts it, they mate, and the
male finishes weaving the long entrance tunnel.
Because males are polygynous, a successful
male would go on to build several more nests in the same colony to attract
multiple partners.
I was equally curious to know what the Bird
Man of India – Salim Ali had to say about the Baya Weaver! 😊
So it was, that I looked up Salim Ali’s
Book of Indian Birds published in 1941 to read what exactly makes the Baya
Weaver so unique. And here goes the Master’s take -
A distinction must be made between birds
that nest in individual pairs in usually well-recognised territories, like the
Black Drongo for example, and those that nest in colonies. Some familiar
examples of the latter are the Weaver-Birds, Cliff Swallows, Common and Edible
Swifts, and water birds such as Storks, Cormorants and Herons.
Whatever its pattern, the nest is always
true to the type of the species that builds it, and is primarily the outcome of
instinct fixed and inherited through countless generations of builders. That a
young Baya in its first season builds a nest exactly like the one in which it
was born is neither the result of training by its parents nor of intelligence
as we understand it. The architecture may be improved and perfected with
practice, but the design will remain constant.
Experiments have shown that birds hatched
in an incubator who can therefore have no idea of the sort of nest built by
their kind, will, at the appointed time, build nests after their own specific
pattern. A great deal of the other seemingly intelligent behaviour of nesting
birds, such as solicitude or love for their offspring, and the ‘broken wing’
trick practised by many different species ostensibly to draw off an intruder
from the nest or young, prove upon analysis to be largely, if not wholly, the
working of a blind and unreasoning instinct,
says Salim Ali.
He adds some specialised observations on
the Baya in his book. Here goes -
The Baya or Common Weaver-Bird Ploceus
philippinus (Linnaeus).
Size: That of the Sparrow.
Field Characters: Female, and male in
non-breeding plumage, very like the female House-Sparrow but with a thicker
bill and shorter tail. Flocks, about open cultivation.
Distribution: Ceylon and all India, Assam
and Burma. Mostly plains, but also sub-Himalayan foothills up to about 3,000
feet.
Habits: The Baya is essentially a bird of
open cultivated country. It goes about in flocks, often of considerable size,
gleaning paddy, jowari and other seeds on the ground, or invading ripening
crops to which it causes a certain amount of damage.
Paddy cultivation largely
governs the seasonal movements of the bird. Enormous numbers gather to roost in
favourite patches of reeds and bulrushes, usually on the swampy margins of
tanks. Their call notes are a sparrow-like chit-chit-chit followed by a long-drawn
chee-ee uttered in chorus, while the birds are working on their nests.
Nesting: The Baya is noted chiefly for its
wonderful retort shaped hanging nests and for its remarkable breeding biology.
The season coincides with the S.W. Monsoon - chiefly between May and September
- and the consequent availability of paddy plants and coarse saw-edged grasses
for building material. The birds build in colonies, occasionally of over 100
nests, on babool or ber trees and date or palmyra palms standing amidst
cultivation.
The nest with its long entrance tube is
commonly suspended over water at heights of between 5 and 40 feet. It is
compactly woven with strips of grass or paddy leaf and has a small quantity of
mud stuck inside near the egg-chamber, the significance of which is not
understood.
The male does most of the building. When a
nest is nearing completion a female arrives and takes possession of it, and
thenceforth the two become husband and wife, she assisting to finish off the
interior. As soon as eggs are laid, the male commences another nest close by
which in due course is similarly appropriated by a second female.
Thus a single cock may have two, three or
more nests and wives.
The eggs - two to four - are pure white and
unmarked. The female alone incubates and is mainly responsible for tending the
young,
says Salim Ali.
So yes! the next time you chance upon a
Baya Weaver’s nest swaying over the water, or dangling high above on the trees,
just remember the sheer amount of work and the demanding building inspector who made it happen! 😊
