View source for Finn’s Weaver

=Breeding colonies=
==2020: Bijnor==
[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2020%2F06%2F27&entity=Ar02023&sk=908DF0C4&mode=text  Sandeep Rai, June 27, 2020: ''The Times of India'']

A chance discovery of a fresh breeding colony of the Finn’s Weaver — a tiny bird clothed in yellow and black — in UP’s Bijnor by a team of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has kindled hope among those worried about the future of the species. 

Of the just 1,000 or so left in the world right now, 500 are in India.

The Finn’s Weaver is a globally threatened species currently listed as vulnerable in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. It’s on the verge of extinction, according to BNHS that is looking to upgrade the species’ status to “critical” in the list.

A BNHS team, dedicated to the conservation of this bird, was upbeat after it found the new site in Bijnor’s Sherkot. The experts said restricted human movement in the area may have given a new lease of life to this bird.

The Finn’s Weaver was first discovered in India in December 1866 by AO Hume, one of the founders of Indian National Congress. He was also an ornithologist and botanist. Renowned Indian ornithologist and naturalist Salim Ali, who referred to Hume as the “father of Indian ornithology”, had rediscovered the bird in 1959 in Kumaon.

In Bijnor, the bird species had two nesting areas in Harewali and Bhagwanpur. Now they have been found in Sherkot too.
Rajat Bhargava, senior scientist at BNHS and head of the team which located the Sherkot site, told TOI, “Sherkot is a new location where this species has been reported for the first time. We found these birds near the Kho Dam there. Over a period of time, the population of this small bird declined rapidly because of vanishing grasslands, its primary habitat.”