Satin Bowerbirds-Building a Bower

Ambience: displaying male satin bowerbird call
If there were awards for interior decorating in the animal kingdom, the male satin bowerbird would deserve top honors. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. At this time of year in New South Wales, Australia, Satin Bowerbirds are wooing their mates in style, spending all their time building and decorating their love nest: the bower.

“Males have a really complex and multifaceted sexual display…”

Evolutionary Biologist Seth Coleman.

“Bowers are these specialized stick structures that bowerbirds build
The structure is used just for courtship and copulation Females will visit multiple males at their bowers and choose a single male as a mate.”

“These walls of sticks the male actually places in the ground stick by stick and then weaves them together in the bottomto form kind of a basket or a cup that the female actually sits in Male satin bowerbirds decorate their bower platforms with a number of brightly colored objects. The most prized objects are parrot feathers But in addition to that they decorate with blue flowers and yellow flowers. They collect snail shells and snake skin. They’ll use bright beetle parts… Male satin bowerbirds will frequently and readily use artificial objects. They will regularly come into people’s camps or their gardens or onto their porches and steal brightly colored objects pens, rings if you leave your jewelry around, toothbrushes. At our field site if my toothbrush goes missing, I know where to find it… a typical male, he spends 80 percent of his day doing bower maintenance. He’ll keep it in good order as much as he can, but frequently while he’s absent neighboring males will come in and destroy his bower and steal his decorations. Now, it’s entirely likely that when he’s not there, he’s actually at his neighbor’s bower doing some reciprocal destruction and stealing.”

Building the bower is just the beginning of the satin bowerbird’s courtship ritual. We’ll hear more in future programs. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation.

Satin Bowerbirds-Building a Bower

If there were awards for interior decorating in the animal kingdom, the male satin bowerbird would deserve top honors.
Air Date:05/22/2009
Scientist:
Transcript:

Ambience: displaying male satin bowerbird call
If there were awards for interior decorating in the animal kingdom, the male satin bowerbird would deserve top honors. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. At this time of year in New South Wales, Australia, Satin Bowerbirds are wooing their mates in style, spending all their time building and decorating their love nest: the bower.

“Males have a really complex and multifaceted sexual display...”

Evolutionary Biologist Seth Coleman.

“Bowers are these specialized stick structures that bowerbirds build
The structure is used just for courtship and copulation Females will visit multiple males at their bowers and choose a single male as a mate.”

“These walls of sticks the male actually places in the ground stick by stick and then weaves them together in the bottomto form kind of a basket or a cup that the female actually sits in Male satin bowerbirds decorate their bower platforms with a number of brightly colored objects. The most prized objects are parrot feathers But in addition to that they decorate with blue flowers and yellow flowers. They collect snail shells and snake skin. They'll use bright beetle parts... Male satin bowerbirds will frequently and readily use artificial objects. They will regularly come into people's camps or their gardens or onto their porches and steal brightly colored objects pens, rings if you leave your jewelry around, toothbrushes. At our field site if my toothbrush goes missing, I know where to find it... a typical male, he spends 80 percent of his day doing bower maintenance. He'll keep it in good order as much as he can, but frequently while he's absent neighboring males will come in and destroy his bower and steal his decorations. Now, it's entirely likely that when he's not there, he's actually at his neighbor's bower doing some reciprocal destruction and stealing.”

Building the bower is just the beginning of the satin bowerbird's courtship ritual. We'll hear more in future programs. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation.