Tanka Tuesday and Bird of the Week
Melissa has provided a choice of a painting by Romare Bearden as inspiration for this week’s Tanka Tuesday poem. You can join in here: https://tankatuesday.com/2026/04/28/tankatuesday-poetry-challenge-no-62-romare-bearden-4-28-26/
This is the painting I chose:
This is also my entry for Don’t Hold Your Breath blog’s Bird of the Week Challenge. You can join in here: https://anotherglobaleater.wordpress.com/2026/04/28/common-myna-birds-of-the-week-invitation-clxvi/
Southern Masked Weaver (Tanka)
reeds adorned with nests
stretching for miles and miles
Southern Masked Weaver
energetic males building
twenty five woven nests each
roberta-writes.com 
Cute bird and nest.
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Thank you, Brad
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Never heard of or seen anything quite like this… Thank you for introducing me to this cool species of bird!
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My pleasure, Annette. Next time I’ll take a picture of the entire swamp. It was filled with these birds and their nests.
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Marvelous tanka on a marvelous bird, Robbie! You open our eyes to nature’s beauties in wonderful ways with your writing and photography. 💛💛💛
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HI Dora, thank you, I’m so pleased you enjoy my nature posts.
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What a beautiful hardworking little bird – so deserving of a tanka dedicated to it 💞
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Thank you, Suzanne. I have it in my head I should create a poetry book dedicated to birds. Each poem about a southern African bird is one step closer.
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Oh yes you should. I googled this one as obviously not native to the UK… 💞
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I love your poem, Robbie. The bird and nest pictures are cool.
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Weavers are very cool birds, Priscilla. Their nest building is amazing.
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Love your poem Robbie and your photographs.
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Thank you, Maggie.
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Wonderful! I’d like to see a time lapse of one doing It’s nest weaving!
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I would have taken a video but young Michael was hogging the camera. Haha, we fight over it now. Thanks, Wayne.
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I do love your weavers!
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It’s a lovely painting, too, Robbie xx
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It is, thank you, Jo.
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Wow, that’s pretty cool. I’ve never seen a bird nest that way.
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Thank you, Edward. I love these birds. I have three who live in my summer garden – William, Werner, and Wagner. I also have two hadedas, Eleanor and Edward.
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Beautiful, Robbie. You’ve captured the painting and introduced a lovely bird. 😊
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Thank you, Gwen. I’m glad you enjoyed this.
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Those nests are works of art. (K)
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I think so too, Kerfe. They are amazing. I love weaver birds.
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Wonderful pictures and poetry, Roberta! 😍
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Thank you, Tim. I forgot to mention that Michael took the first picture of the weaver bird. He is getting much better at photography.
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That’s a lovely photo, and a great description of the bird’s behaviour and habitat.
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I’m glad you enjoyed this poem and photos. It really was a wonderful sight.
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The nest is interesting to see. Lovely entry, Robbie
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Thank you, Hazel
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My pleasure, Robbie
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