KENYA – Samburu : The Weavers

Weavers find this savanna habitat very much to their liking. There are plenty of acacia trees, the grasses are perfect for nest building and their seeds are available year round. It is still too early and dry for most to nest at this time, though a few were doing repair work and thinking about it.

The weaver family is a large one, with a great many of them being highly gregarious colonial breeders. It is of course the arid specialists that are found here. White-browed Sparrow Weavers are the most common at the moment, and one can tell which nests are theirs because they are built on the west side of a tree. I found fewer White-headed Buffalo-Weaver’s (above) than I had encountered in the past. It was probably the time of the year. We also came across a few Red-billed Buffalo-Weavers and Donaldson-Smith’s.

The smaller Black-capped Social Weavers (left) were in groups of about forty and were gearing up to breed. They could be seen foraging amongst the grasses, occasionally in association with the similar sized Cutthroats and Chestnut Sparrows.

All the nests of the weavers mentioned above tend to be a little ragged, while the true weavers (mainly the yellow ones) are even finer craftsman, intricately weaving them into various dome shapes with an entrance underneath. Golden Palm Weavers, are part of that true weaver group and reach the northwestern edge of their territory in this region. They can be usually be seen near the Serena compound and favoring the Doum Palms along the river.