|
ZooNooz Article - december 2004
Avian architects
Story by Jane Mundy
Photograph Jeff Grant
Bower birds are naturally territorial and may pilfer decorations from each other and even attempt to trash each other's bowers.
The two male Satin Bower Birds in Taronga's Streets Creatures of the Wollemi
exhibit have been busy building and decorating their new season's bowers. The
23-year-old glossy blue-black adult and his three-year-old green-feathered offspring
compete with each other to see who can create the most impressive show-piece.
Satin Bower Birds |
Bowers aren't nests for raising the kids. They are bachelor pads to
which the male attracts a mate and seduces her with his courtship ritual - an
elaborate display of strutting and bowing with wings outstretched and quivering,
accompanied by a large repertoire of distinctive songs which includes scratchy
hisses, loud whistled shrieks and mechanical whirring sounds, as well as
imitations of other birds that share their environment.
Each bower consists of two parallel walls of sticks and leaves, built on the
ground and decorated with bright blue objects, such as bottle tops, drinking
straws and twine, that match the male's own colour. During spring an adult male
may spend most of each day in his bower preparing for courtship.
Bower birds are naturally territorial and may pilfer decorations from each
other and even attempt to trash each other's bowers.
Animal Watch video cameras, installed to monitor the Wollemi Platypuses,
sometimes pick up images of the adult male bower bird displaying, apparently
convinced that his own reflection in the lens of the camera is that of a female.
Want to read more?
By joining as a Zoo Friends member we send you a full colour, glossy magazine each quarter as part of your membership package. Join now.
« Back to ZooNooz article listing
|
