Baya Weaver
Ploceus philippinus
Manjeera Wildlife Sanctuary
The Baya Weaver (Ploceus philippinus) is a weaverbird found across the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Flocks of these birds are found in grasslands, cultivated areas, scrub and secondary growth and they are best known for their hanging retort shaped nests woven from leaves. These nest colonies are usually found on thorny trees or palm fronds and the nests are often built near water or hanging over water where predators cannot reach easily. They are widespread and common within their range but are prone to local, seasonal movements mainly in response to rain and food availability.
But it wasn’t always this simple with the oft ignored Baya. Linnaeus (1766) briefly described the Baya Weaver, based on the longer description in Brisson 1760. Mathurin Jacques Brisson, a French zoologist, gave the names "Le Gros-bec des Philippines" (French) and Coccothraustes philippensis (Latin). Brisson's original painting was poor, and early ornithologists suggested it referred to another Asian weaver, but Arthur Hay (1881) confirmed that Brisson and thus Linnaeus referred to the Baya Weaver. Brisson noted that the Baya Weaver originated from the Philippines Isles but this locality is an error, and Hartert (1902) realised this and suggested the type locality should be Ceylon (Sri Lanka), without providing a reason for this choice.
A few years later Stresemann (1952) showed that the Baya Weaver was collected by Pierre Poivre, the administrator of Mauritius and Reunion. Poivre travelled to the Coromandel Coast, the South Eastern coast of India, in 1753 being based at Pondicherry where Poivre collected several species of birds, including the Baya Weaver. The Stresemann (1952) reference appears to have been overlooked as modern texts still refer to Sri Lanka as the type locality. Poivre sent the Baya Weaver to Abbe Octave Aubry, a French parish priest who was rector of Saint-Louis and who collected bird specimens. Brisson visited Aubry to describe the new birds in the collection. Poivre also collected at least 2 nests of the Baya Weaver, which Brisson described in his text. These nests are the earliest illustrations of weaver nests in Western literature.
The first colour illustration of the Baya Weaver is in the book by Edme-Louis Daubenton, containing coloured engravings by Francois-Nicolas Martinet. All that said however, the Baya Weaver is well known in India and there are references to this bird in Indian literature that pre-dates the Western scientific literature by a significant margin.
Baya weavers and their unique nesting nature were first recorded in Ain-i-Akbari, the 16th-century document recording the administration of Akbar’s empire, and a part of the much larger document, the Akbarnama.
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Baya Weaver
These are sparrow-sized (15 cm) and in their non-breeding plumage, both males and females resemble female house sparrows. They have a stout conical bill and a short square tail. Non-breeding males and females look very similar - a dark brown streaked fulvous buff above, plain (unstreaked) whitish fulvous below, the eyebrow is long and buff coloured, and the bill is horn coloured and no mask. Breeding males have a bright yellow crown, dark brown mask, blackish brown bill, upper parts are dark brown streaked with yellow, with a yellow breast and cream buff below as seen here.
Among the population variations, five subspecies are recognized. The nominate race philippinus is found through much of mainland India while burmanicus is found eastwards into Southeast Asia. The population in southwest India is darker above and referred to as subspecies travancoreensis.
P. p. philippinus (Linnaeus, 1766) – Pakistan, India (except southwest and northeast), Sri Lanka and south Nepal
P. p. travancoreensis Ali & Whistler, 1936 – southwest India
P. p. burmanicus Ticehurst, 1932 – Bhutan, northeast India and Bangladesh through Myanmar to southwest China
P. p. angelorum Deignan, 1956 – Thailand and south Laos
P. p. infortunatus Hartert, 1902 – south Vietnam, Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra, Java and Bali
The Baya love to live and build in colonies given their social and gregarious nature. Being graminivorous, they find that paddy fields furnish valuable granaries for a food supply. They forage in flocks of 20-30 for seeds, both on the plants and on the ground. Flocks fly in close formations, often performing complicated manoeuvres.
Although much has been written about their remarkable nests there are many interesting points connected with their construction that have escaped most observers or that do not appear to have impressed watchers sufficiently. I propose with the aid of this video and photos taken in situ to point out some of these curious happenings.
To begin with, unlike most other birds who try to conceal their nest, the weavers build their homes quite in the open where they can be seen by all. Their nests, while being out in the open, are almost always hanging from the north and east exposures of the trees in which they are built. This is to ensure the nests are least endangered by the battering winds of the southwest monsoon.
The nest begins with a single strand, knotted to a branch with beak and claw as you see here. After that, the technique is just like any other weaving pattern-the strands are threaded through others at opposing angles. From the first knot, an entrance is built. The aperture is important. It must be large enough for the birds to enter, but small enough to restrict predators from entering. The ideal design has a long tube that connects to a chamber, which will optimistically serve as the nursery.
The intricate and elaborate nests are woven by the male and are often built hanging over water. These pendulous nests are retort shaped, with a central nesting chamber and a long vertical tube that leads to a side entrance to the chamber. The nests are woven with long strips of paddy leaves, rough grasses and long strips torn from palm fronds. Each strip can be between 20-60cm in length. A male bird is known to make up to 500 trips to complete a nest. The birds use their strong beaks to strip and collect the strands, and to weave and knot them while building their nests. It takes about 18 days to complete the nest and from the helmet stage around 8 days are required.
The females too are involved, especially for the interiors, through adding the blobs of mud, clay or cow dung to the nest walls. Any villager in India will happily narrate the widespread folklore that the Baya sticks the fireflies in those blobs to light up the nest at night. Male birds also have been seen to add blobs to the nest chamber prior to pairing with a female. However according to studies of the birds' behaviour it has been suggested that the clay may help to stabilise the nest against the strong monsoon winds.
When the nest is complete, the male will announce an open house by fluttering his wings. He invites a female home and hopes she approves. If she does, there will be eggs in the nest within days. If she doesn't, the nest is usually abandoned. A male will often make multiple nests over the course of the mating season.
In earlier times, the baya weaver was trained by street performers in India for entertainment. They could pick up objects at the command of their trainers. They were trained to fire toy cannons, string beads, pick up coins and other objects. According to Edward Blyth
"the truth is, that the feats performed by trained Bayas are really very wonderful, and must be witnessed to be fully credited. Exhibitors carry them about, we believe, to all parts of the country; and the usual procedure is, when ladies are present, for the bird, on a sign from its master, to take a sweetmeat in its bill, and deposit it between a lady's lips, and repeat this offering to every lady present, the bird following the look and gesture of its master. A miniature cannon is then brought, which the bird loads with coarse grains of powder...."
Robert Tytler noted demonstrations where the bird would twirl a thin stick with fires at the ends over its head. These uses have been noted from the time of Akbar.
The baya is like a wild sparrow but yellow. It is extremely intelligent, obedient and docile. It will take small coins from the hand and bring them to its master, and will come to a call from a long distance. Its nests are so ingeniously constructed as to defy the rivalry of clever artificers.
— Āīn (trans. Jarrett), iii. 122. (ca. 1590) quoted in the Hobson Jobson
On a final somber note, the Baya is extinct in Delhi and the areas around it. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), an NGO involved in conservation and biodiversity research, conducted a week long bird monitoring programme. According to officials, while not a single bird was spotted in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR), a total of 56 birds were spotted during a two-hour walk at the Bhindawas Bird Sanctuary in Haryana's Jhajjar district, about 52 km away.
"About five years back there were many Baya in Delhi" said Mugdha Singh, Education officer at Conservation Education Centre (CEC) Delhi - a sanctuary run by BNHS - told IANS.
To weave a home, to woo the girl, to start a family in the trees: This is the life of a male weaver bird—champion textile designers and indefatigable courters. Hopefully they will return to their habitats where they are no longer seen today.
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