This is Philetairus Socius, the sociable weaver bird.

With the ingenuity of accomplished architects,
sociable weavers build huge cooperative apartment houses
- one straw at a time -
in the thorn trees and kokerbooms of Namibia.
Some of the larger nests are home to 300 birds!
Each chamber is about the size of a man's fist
and leads to the underside of the nest via a tube.
Amazingly this tube is lined with grass straws all pointing down and inwards.
This makes it almost impossible for snakes and other predators to enter.

You can find a great variety of nests in Namibia:


The artistic nest.


All in a row.

 


The Macabre.

The Rondavel.


On opposite sides of the street.


Here is the underside of this nest:


Because weavers eat mainly insects they do not need to drink water.
EVER!
That is why you find them in some of the driest areas.

(See last weeks story and others here.)



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