Gareth Robbins of Golden Orb Tours monitored a Cape Weaver colony in Wittedrift near Plettenburg Bay. The colony had 3 males. The number of nests increased at the beginning of the season, but during October more nests were broken down than were built, resulting in a dip in total nests present. From November to December there was a nett increase in nests present, to a maximum of 16 nests. After mid December the breeding activity was over with some nests being broken down.

Several broods of chicks were raised successfully, although one brood was killed by a cat and another chick fell out of its nest. Gareth provided lots of notes about the progress of his colony - see phown 1582 and scroll down to below the map where a full history of the colony appears: date, number of nests, and notes for each PHOWN record. There are a few records from the 2011 breeding season, followed by the 2012 season. To see all the photos for each record, click on the PHOWN record links.

Previous news item about Golden Orb Tours - read here.

The variation in colony size of the above colony is different to that of a Cape Weaver colony with two males at Rondevlei (see graph at PHOWN repeats. More data is needed where weaver colonies are monitored through a breeding season to study the variation in number of nests!