short square tail. Non-breeding males and females look very similar: dark brown streaked fulvous buff above, plain (unstreaked) whitish fulvous below, eyebrow long and buff coloured, 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. Behaviour and ecology Baya weavers are social and gregarious birds. They forage in flocks for seeds, both on the plants and on the ground. Flocks fly in close formations, often performing complicated manoeuvres. They are known to glean paddy and other grain in harvested fields, and occasionally damage ripening crops and are therefore sometimes considered as pests. They roost in reed-beds bordering waterbodies. They depend on wild grasses such as Guinea grass (Panicum maximum) as well as crops like rice for both their food (feeding on seedlings in the germination stage as well as on early stages of grain) and nesting material. They also feed on insects (including butterflies), sometimes taking small frogs, geckos and molluscs, especially to feed their young. Their seasonal movements are governed by food availability. Their calls are a continuous ... sometimes ending in a wheezy that is produced by males in a chorus. A lower intensity call is produced in the non-breeding season. They are occasionally known to descend to the ground and indulge in dust bathing. In captivity, individuals are known to form stable peck orders. Breeding The breeding season of the baya weavers is during the monsoons. The breeding condition is initiated by environmental characters such as day length and comes to an end late in summer. This post-reproductive "photorefractoriness", in which photoperiodic birds cease to respond reproductively to the stimulation of long days, can end spontaneously without having been exposed to short days for four to six months unlike temperate birds. They nest in colonies typically of up to 20–30, close to the source of food, nesting material and water. Baya weavers are best known for the elaborately woven nests constructed by the males. 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 in length. A male bird is known to