68. Holub’s Golden Weaver This bird, which is the largest of the many weavers in East Africa, is currently nesting in a small patch of thin reeds at the bottom of Africama garden. I was able to watch the stocky male, equipped with a heavy and powerful-looking bill, building a number of nests. On one occasion I saw him taking food – it looked like a grasshopper – into the nest. The food looked rather large for nestlings, so perhaps he was feeding his mate sitting on their eggs. The nest hung from a narrow and very flexible reed which would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for any predator to climb, and it was constantly swaying, jerking and whipping around in the wind. It made me feel queasy just to imagine what it must feel like to sit inside that bucking globule of woven grasses, softened inside no doubt with feathers or fluff, but still a nightmare of a natural fairground ride. The birds themselves, of course, care not-at-all for all that. Even landing accurately and without mishap at the entrance to one of those nests seemed, in rain or a high wind, an aviation feat of some magnitude. Birds of AFRICAMA House 140 Birds of AFRICAMA House 141