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Nov 22, 2007 |
Science Diary: Climate Change - Bower Birds
In the cloudforest of Australia, bowerbirds build elaborate homes for their mates. Ambience: Bowerbird vocalizations, close up In the cloudforests of northeastern Australia, there are animals that are found nowhere else in the world. Were listening to one of them now a rather remarkable bird. Welcome to Pulse of the Planets Science Diaries, a glimpse of the world of science from the inside. When we were doing the bird surveys around here this morning, theres lots of tooth-billed bowerbirds here. And several times it was sort of like Oh, theres a black-faced monarch. No, no its just a tooth-billed imitating a black-faced monarch. Then they were doing a chouchilla calls, then they were doing grey-headed robin calls, then they were doing bower shrike thrush call. But, luckily for us, in terms of surveying, they generally put their own little clicks and whistles on the end of the other birds call. Thats how you can tell that its a bowerbird. Thats field biologist Steve Williams talking about one of the great mimics of the avian world the tooth-billed bowerbird. But mimicry is only one aspect of this birds unusual behavior. It creates a bower by clearing a patch in the forest floor and placing fresh green leaves on it in a pattern that it hopes will please the girls as they come around. Its very fussy about the way it puts its leaves down on the ground. If you go and turn the leaves over or move them or anything, itll come back down after youve gone and rearrange them and put them back where he likes them. And sometimes the male bowerbirds steal things off each other. Theyll steak particularly good items off their bowers. The tooth-billed bowerbird is only found here, in the wet tropics in Australia. So, its a really important species for conservation in the area. And its also one of the ones that are more susceptible to climate change because of the fact that its restricted to the rainforests and the tops of the mountains here. According to Steve Williams, if temperatures continue to rise in the Australian cloudforests, the bowerbirds and many other species will be threatened with extinction. Pulse of the Planets Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation. Im Jim Metzner. Birds,Behavior,Intelligence Scientist: Steve Williams |
