Greetings,
Yesterday, I spent a wonderful morning with a Danish birder at Mt Hypipamee
watching a very active Golden Bowerbird at his bower. The bird was bringing
sticks of inordinate size, either in length or thickness but not both to his
bower. He did this on five occasions while we were there and also visited
one other time with no decoration. When we arrived he was not seen but soon
showed up and complained about us being right beside his bower. We backed
off. He flew away and came back with a twig about 600 mm long, breaking off
a third of it on a branch as he flew in. He then left the bower and
performed a few short displays similar to those conducted for females but in
a directionless manner and without the nape and crown erected. Wondering if
there was a female around I took my guest further away. He displayed briefly
on and off over a period of half an hour but it all seemed to be 'practice,'
not directed at another bird or at us. I have never seen so much action at a
bower with only the owner present.
This bird only came to my attention late last year but one friend thinks
that it has been known for some time. My impression is that it is a rather
naive bird. Until Christmas it only had a maypole with a display perch on a
leafy low side branch of one of the support saplings. His decorations have
always been rather jumbled but now he has added more than the half dozen
sticks to leafy side of the cross and is more organised with his
decorations. Lichens are now only placed on the leafy side but Melicope
fruit on both. About Christmas a small branch fell close to the base of the
bower about 70* angle to his current display perch. This branch links the
bower to a small sapling a bit over a metre from the bower and he has now
started adding twigs along that branch and around the sapling. On one recent
visit there was a single piece of lichen on the twigs on this sapling and so
I suspect it may be the beginnings of a tower for next season.
I know of two cache sites for this bird. For those interested but who didn't
follow the link given previously here is a bird feeding from his cache in
2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLxW9BEDpk
Regards,
Alan
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