White-Rumped Munias Building a Nest

There’s been the makings of a nest between the eavestroughing and the house since as long as I’ve lived here, which is over three years. Until now, I’ve seen no activity involving it – no birds coming and going, no building, no spring cleaning, no little chickies, nothing.

And honestly, that made me sad.

Then the beginning of February happened. That’s when the Munias decided to move in. Good for them, I say. Squatters or no, I’m glad they’ve taken over the vacant space. 🙂

Heaven knows we don’t want to encourage vandalism or graffiti in the neighborhood, you know? It brings property prices down… 😀

Erm…

These pictures are taken from the end of February.

What I find interesting is that the munias are not discriminating birds – they’ll take grass stalks or rice for building materials. No two by fours or steel stud for these guys, nope. Grass stalks and rice stalks. And dead palm leaf strips. And, you know, other plant matter…

Here, you’ve got a great underside view of the nest. Photo taken from ground level, whereas this is on the second level.

Then you  can see a munia – mommy or daddy I don’t know – busy doing stuff with the nest, which, interestingly enough to me, opens from underneath the nest. Not a construction choice I would have thought of in a nest, you know what I mean?

And you can see a munia leaving…

Fly, munia, fly!

And here’s a munia relaxing after a hard day of nest restoration and remodelling work. Can’t say I blame him (her?) for taking a break…