2013/12/19

The Regent Bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus) or Gelbnacken-Laubenvogel

What looks like a sparkling Christmas tree ornament in this picture is a male Regent Bowerbird, who is like so many of his fellow human Aussies an enthusiastic decorator, adorning the elaborate structure he erects to impress females with colourful objects and even paint his bower using wads of greenish leaves as paintbrushes. This astonishing behaviour is representing one of the few known instances of tools used by birds, giving its quintessential Australian “do-it-yourself” approach to housekeeping and additional artistic touch. It’s not known and not very likely that the Regent Bowerbird takes extra effort to decorate his bower over Christmas, but one of its relatives, the MacGregor's Bowerbird, native to New Guinea's mountain forests, has taken on the festive theme by building bizarre structures that have been described to resemble exploding Christmas trees. I’m not sure if my family and Mrs S in particular would appreciate it, but I’m very tempted to take the MacGregor's Bowerbirds work as inspiration and build my own Xmas bower. To stick to the avian master decorator's template, I need a small tree that I have to strip off all leaves and branches, clear a circular area around the tree off all detritus and cover the it with a solid layer of moss. Next I need a lot of twigs of different sizes and lengths, and carefully array them in a way that they interlock to create something stable. It’s important that the longer sticks are inserted around the shorter ones, giving the whole artwork its mad inverted Christmas tree appearance. This is followed by the most fun part of this creative process by decorating the structure - mushrooms, strands of spider silk, colourful beetles and butterflies and stringy lichen are the obvious choice, but I may as well put a more personal note to it by adding empty bottles of beer. And even if my bowerbird inspired Christmas tree construction will not get the unanimous approval of my family I’m sure that our Bird Of The Week The Regent Bowerbird will recognize my effort.

 

Next week: The Wandering Whistling Duck or gone for a whistling duck