Shareholder Aileen has been spending a lot of time at the reserve lately and shares her stories with us:
It seems as though there is an abundance of a specific species every time we visit Limpopo-Lipadi, depending on the time of year. This time around there where so many southern masked weavers flying around and keeping themselves busy with building nests.
It’s the males that put in most of the effort as they weave the nests. They do this to seduce and impress up to four different females.
Once the nest is built, the females will check it out and give their verdict. If the nest is not accepted by the females, it is destroyed. But if it is accepted, the female will decorate the inside. One thing I found fascinating about these birds, besides their weaving abilities of course, was the amount of time that goes into creating the perfect garden to go with the nest.
The male weaver carefully snips off all the leaves surrounding the nest so the area becomes nice and open. From dawn to dusk you could look at these little weavers and would never get bored of what you see or hear.
Photos: Aileen Oosterling