The male begins with a ring of woven grass and extends it into a kidney-shaped chamber with a downward entrance, tying real knots with the bill and feet. Construction takes a day or so for an experienced bird. He then hangs below the nest, wings beating and calling, to draw a female's attention.
The female enters and inspects. Rejection is common, and a male whose nest is repeatedly refused often strips it away and rebuilds on the same attachment point. Individual males may build many nests in a season, and older males build more quickly and more tidily than young ones, indicating the skill improves with practice rather than arriving fully formed.
Village weavers are also unusual among African hosts of brood parasites in the strength of their egg discrimination. Individual females lay eggs of a consistent, distinctive colour and spotting pattern and reject eggs that differ from their own, a signature system that makes parasitism by the diederik cuckoo difficult to sustain.