As its name implies, the tailor bird has rather a talent for sewing. This little bird, which lives in tropical Asia, uses plant fibres, fine grasses, caterpillar cocoons, silk from cobwebs and even threads borrowed from discarded human fabric or carpets to ‘sew’ leaves together and make a nest for itself and its young.
The female tailorbird chooses a tree with large leaves in a safe location, in the middle of dense foliage and at least a metre above ground. She selects a leaf and wraps it around herself to try it for size. If it isn’t big enough, she chooses two leaves growing close together.
First, she pierces each leaf along the edge with her long, needle-like beak. Then, using her feet to hold together the leaves, she carefully pulls each strand of plant material through a hole in the first leaf and loops it over to a hole in the second leaf and pulls it tight before repeating the action along the length of the leaves. While she is doing the needlework, the male brings the threads.
Little by little she laces up the leaves to form them into a cup using dozens of stitches.
Into that cup the pair stuffs nesting material – fine grasses, animal hair and fluffy seed down. The female then lays between three and five eggs and the chicks are hatched and grow up safely in their secure and camouflaged home.
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