Bowerbird cam!

January 9, 2015 • 4:26 pm

If you’re aware of the time difference between your country and Australia, and watch at the right time, you can see some really nice courtship behavior of the satin bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus). Yes, they’ve set up a bowerbird cam at this site (or click on the screenshot below, thoughtfully provided by reader Diane G., who called all this to my attention):

Bowerbird

You can see that the glossy blue-black male has built a nice bower (not a nest) to attract females, and has festooned it with blue objects, many purloined from human habitations. When the drabber female comes by, he often brandishes a nice blue object, and goes nuts running around and making funny noises. It’s a really great way to see sexual selection in action.

If you want to see when it’s daytime in Australia, go to this site, which tells you instantly whether the livecam will show you anything. It so happens that it’s daytime in Oz right now, and the male and some females are hanging around. Be patient if you don’t see anything, for the male rarely strays far from his lair of seduction.

To read more about bowerbirds and their “extended phenotypes” that attract females, Felicity Muth has a nice article on her “Not Bad Science” website.

 

36 thoughts on “Bowerbird cam!”

        1. It’s a much slower process than I’ve imagined it to be. I always pictured the male zipping to and fro, adding pieces the way a cartoon bird might.

          Also, no little carpenter’s cap and apron apparently.

          1. I’ve seen the Attenborough program on this bird and apparently it’s a laborious labour of love. And it’s something else to see bower birds trash and pilfer choice items from each other’s love ‘nests’. These are not nests for the eggs or baby birds but strictly a bower devoted to l’amour (a chick magnet, of a sort).

            The following is yet another wonderful Attenborough film about the Art of Seduction, and the bower bird appears at around the 33:20 mark. Attenborough’s inimitable commentary is a gem.
            http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsynmo_bowerbirds-the-art-of-seduction-by-david-attenborough_shortfilms

  4. What is the significance of all the blues? Something that partcularly attracts (some) birds to blue?

    1. Not all species use blue. In the article Jerry linked to at the end of his post you can see pictures of a Great Bowerbird, with a different palette.

  6. A link within the link Jerry links to (link-a-dink-a-dink!) has more data on the bower-building process.

    blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/2011/06/27/the-bowerbird-a-master-of-illusion/

    For some reason I’m always amused by the thought of the male rushing to restore some part of his display the scientists have messed with. 🙂

      1. Well that’s only fair.

        😀

        I love to watch her (or “them”–I’m never sure how many females are involved) come in and so thoroughly inspect every aspect of the bower.

        1. Me too… And inspect they do! It’s tickles me no end.

          I’m anxious to see if this fella in the video gets lucky, as IMHO that bower doesn’t quite pass muster yet. Teehee!

    2. Yes, it is cute how the bird straightens pieces of it up. We are a lot more like birds than we think.

  7. I’m a bit concerned about his bower, it’s quite lop-sided and I fear he won’t get much female attention if he can’t balance it up a bit.

    2. Yes, I have several screen shots of a female spending quite a while contemplating that side!

  8. Quite by chance I read this yesterday, in Anthony Burgess’ Earthly Powers:

    The most soothing and at the same time humbling thing I saw in New South Wales was in Professor Hocksly’s aviary, where a bowerbird had set up a tunnel of twigs through which to chase possible mates, decorating the Gaudi-like structure with blue and purple flowers and feathers and stolen laundry bluebags, and I saw him painting the damned thing with a twig in his beak which he dipped into blue and purple berry juice. So much for the spiritual pretensions of art.

    1. A strong ‘preference’ (nudge, nudge) in females for blue; the (>7-yr-old) male is as blue as he possibly can be (plumage, and beautiful eyes), and can only get any bluer by nicking more Blue Stuff.
      As noted above by Diane G., other species have different colour preferences. I’m not aware of any published study combining phylogenetic analysis with comparison of bower morphology and colour scheme for the whole group, but will keep looking.
      At the moment I have the Bowercam tab open and sound turned up: it’s completely dark there (across the continent from me), with sounds of crickets and odd popping and clicking noise that might be frogs, dripping water (not currently raining) or something else.

      1. Here we go: Kusmierski et al. 1997 was the sort of thing I was after, but I know that the phylogenetic evidence was pretty weak at that stage.

        More recent analysis with molecular phylogeny: Zwiers 2009 (PhD dissertation). As if I didn’t have enough to read already. Anyway: open access, and hopefully solves the various chicken/egg questions of the evolution of plumage, colour choice and bower design.

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