On my morning GBS walk today, I saw what appeared to be a medium-sized black bird high in a tree and quite some distance away.
My first reaction was a male Blackbird, one of which I had seen in the general area in recent days. But that ID didn’t really fit – the bill was quite deep at the base; I
couldn’t really detect the yellow bill or eye-ring, but it was a glary backdrop and could have been a lighting effect, and the behaviour was wrong.
I watched the bird in my binos for some minutes trying to iD it when I saw a purply glow ripple down the side of the bird. It was quite distinct and lasted for several seconds.
It was so weird that I thought my binos had picked up a reflection from somewhere. But this effect was definitely attached to the bird.
It was a male mature Satin Bowerbird, which of course is not black but some deep bluey-purply colour in the right light The bird had probably ruffled its feathers and I was
seeing the effect of light diffracted through the open feathers. The bird then took off confirming the ID of a SBB
Very weird and a bit surreal.
David Rosalky
