The White Browed Sparrow Weaver

Plocepasser mahali (subspecies stentor?) and friends. Kalahari, South Africa.

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Taurotragus oryx, Kalahari, South Africa.
I have a childhood memory of a troop of baboons, waiting among nearby rocks on a sun baked kopje, taking notice of nearby humans and watching and waiting until they saw a weakness and finally moving in for the kill, barking, grabbing, ripping livid flesh with long sharp canines, howling like wolves…
... Continued ... I started out walking a good six feet behind her, to avoid the sand she was kicking up and the occasional thorn-lined branch that might swing back in the wake of anyone walking through the African Bush. We were traversing open country in the Kalahari, in an area sealed off from…
Birds don't live in nests. They make nests for specific purposes, use them for that purpose, then abandon them. Or, sometimes they don't abandon them, but rather add on and use them again and again, but in between they don't live in or on them. Well, sometimes they hang out on them a lot. And…

We had these birds nesting across the road from our house in Namibia. What struck me was that less than 15 minutes after the first rain of the rainy season, they were flying back and forth with nesting material.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 06 Dec 2007 #permalink

Anne,
White-browed sparrow weavers are larger than house sparrows (which are about the same size as the grey-headed sparrows in the photo). Their brief song is more musical too.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 07 Dec 2007 #permalink