I was lucky enough, and quite surprised, to find a satin bowerbird bower in
the bushland of Milray Reserve in Wollstonecraft, Sydney. It was there two
years running 2003-2004.
The bower was littered with various blue objects taken from the surrounding
suburbia, and the litter found throughout the bush remnant. However, amongst
all the blue was one small, strikingly yellow flower - family Compositae.
Anyhow, one morning I was able to watch a male sbb perform a mating dance of
some sort. It sang an incredbily complex song and to this song, in time as
it were, it ruffled its feathers in all manner of way, fanned its tail,
hopped up and down, did a jig, twirled about, bobbed its head. This was all
very fascinating - but, the most amazing thing was the yellow flower. This
the bowerbird used to dance with. It picked it up and held it in its beak
while performing, and also spent a lot of time dropping it and picking it
back up again in a kind of ritualistic way.
Since then I have noticed other yellow objects, usually just one, amongst
satin bowerbird display object sets.
Has anyone else observed this behaviour?
James Lambert
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