Sociable Weavers are inconspicuous birds with sweet little dusky blue beaks. Except for their chatter, you might miss them – but for sure you would not miss their nests. These nests are as much a part of the Kalahari landscape as the red sand; the nests are an engineering marvel.

The birds band together to create these bird condos. Each pair of sociable weavers has their own room and there is no common area within – a huge nest might hold as many as 500 birds. Sociable Weavers eat grass seed and bugs and there’s plenty of both around so they are thriving. Pole after pole after pole contains a nest.

And yes, those are real, useable power lines the birds build nests upon, for the most part. The power lines and phone lines seem to be the perfect design for the nest foundation. Most of these lines serve communities out in the boonies – it isn’t like there are any extra lines in case the birds bring the poles down.

That’s exactly what happens. The nests become enormous and the pole falls over. Poles are left to lie on the ground with the wires intact and still running through the weaver nests. Doesn’t this look like a serious problem? Or is it not? No one seems concerned.

What a hoot. I’m reminded of the telegraph poles put up across the central US prairie and what a marvel that was at the time. That is, until the bison began to use the poles to rub off their molting hair. After all, there weren’t many trees on the prairie but suddenly here are lots of poles and millions of bison. Telegraph companies decided that spikes driven into the poles would deter the beasts, but the bison liked the spiked poles even better than the naked ones. Tough luck for them, as we know. And on it goes.