Twigs & Twine~

On By cindy knokeIn Birds, Conservation, MY PHOTOGRAPHS, REVERIES, Wild Life


Weavers, like this Red Bishop from Africa, are industrious and highly social birds. These photos were taken at The San Diego Safari Park aviaries, close to The Holler. There are now 400 or so of these beauties flying wild in Holler skies.
I bet they escaped from the park. Smart birdies.

Weavers belong to a family of birds named Ploceidae that weave incredibly intricate nests that hang from trees in groups or colonies. Holler orioles are weavers.


Buffalo Weavers, also from Africa, are charmingly gregarious, happy birds, that like to perch next to you to for a little chat!

Here they are discussing a leaf. What to do with it? Should they pick it up? They seem to think not. It is, obviously, an object worthy of much interest and discussion, but in the end, a useless thing to them.


They may have no use for leaves, but they are artistic masters of twigs and twine, and spend much of their time collecting both.


Cheers to you from the very busy, very happy weavers~
(Click on paired birds to see more detail.)

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230 thoughts on “Twigs & Twine~”

  7. I love how colorful those birds are and their feathers are so fluffy! Very beautiful birds! I wished we had more colorful ones here too! I think this next summer I will plant some things to try and attract different kinds of birds in my yard. Provided Lucy doesn’t try and chase them away! Happy Thanksgiving sweetie! Hugz Lisa and Lucy

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      1. I am going to! I want to hang hummingbird feeders too! My yard has been all grass for too long! Time to plant pretty plants and flowers and totally put plants on my huge deck

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  9. Weavers bring back memory of a trip to Kenya where our guide called me a black capped social weaver. Would you believe I actually got home with a weaver bird nest which I still have?

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    1. Oh I love your nickname and so amazing you brought back a weaver’s nest! Good for you! When I left S. Africa on our first trip, I opened my suitcase in Paris, and an African frog jumped out, hopped around the room, and jumped out the window into Paris! Frogs can self reproduce and I always wondered if there would be a subsequent African frog population in Paris!

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  12. Loved this post, as always, Cindy. I have only seen weavers in the wild, so what fun it is to see them collecting twigs and contemplating leaves even in captivity. Beautiful and industrious birds.

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  18. You know I’m smiling a big smile after looking at your pictures here — BIRDIES!!! YES!!! Thank you so much! I love the expression on the face of the Weaver with a twig in it’s mouth lol.

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    1. I have so many photos of them with twigs like this! They would look directly at me as if to say, “You poor creature, look at what I have!” Laughing…….I love these 🕊️🕊️

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  23. We had weavers in Liberia, Cindy, that we called rice birds. I am assuming they must have liked the rice that the Kpelle grew. 🙂 They build wonderful nests that hung down from the palm trees in sort of a J configuration. Really liked the discussion going on over the leaf. –Curt

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    1. Yes, they call those groupings of nests, “apartments.” Watching these birds is one of the most calming things a human can do. So glad you saw them in the wild! 🕊️

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    1. 🕊️ intelligence has been so underrated. I am glad science is finally catching up to the complexity of their cognitive and behavioral abilities. Birds can do so many things that humans can’t even begin to understand.

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  27. I don’t guess I’ve ever seen one of these guys, but they’re certainly beautiful! Such pretty colors and intense facial expressions. Thank you for sharing them with us, Cindy!

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    1. They use Mother Nature’s twine, not ours. The Holler orioles for example strip twine from palm trees and weave their entire nest with it! I have photos of this which maybe I should post. You may not see this in a conifer forest, but if you look around many habitats, twine exists in all sorts of plants and trees.

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        1. Let me know what you learn. I think you well might have some, but I only found this reference:
          Birds of the Pacific Northwest Mountains: The Cascade Range, the …
          https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0878423087
          Jan L. Wassink – 1995 – ‎Nature
          The Cascade Range, the Olympic Mountains, Vancouver Island, and the Coast Mountains Jan L. Wassink. Common … Named for the nest-weaving habits of some of its members — who weave the most complex and largest nests in the bird world — weaver finches have short, conical bills adapted to cracking seeds.

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    1. Nope. Not a wimp. Wise. The park is very hot in mid summer and I most especially hate the mists of water sent over human visitors to mitigate the mid-summer heat because it is the only place I go where I have to really shield my camera from the water. The best time is early fall, before the teachers have geared up for all the field trips. And the best time to overstay is at closing, because the keepers expect this, the diehards remain, and you get good photo ops.

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