after years of quality nature documentaries (the big cat diaries of the nineties, walking with dinosaurs of the naughties) I’ve once again found myself retreating to BBC for an evening of somewhat relaxing, monotonic voice-overs and visual appealling wildlife.
The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have evolved in order to survive’, what Charles Darwin termed ‘the struggle for existence’
The recent episode I caught on the iPlayer was focused on birds. And there was one bird that just amazed me; The Vogelkop Bowerbird. These eager little Casanovas, essentially display a collection of ‘art’ to attracts females and mate with them. The birds collection choice is picked aesthetically and consists of found objects, such as fruit, leaves, flowers and ’colour’ is taken into consideration. With all these treasures laid out in front of a well-made bower hut, also constructed by the bird, then this little sex-pot should have no problem seducing a potential mate. Well not quite… as always there is competition, and naturally rival bowerbirds are also out to get some which leads them to create bowers nearby.
Brighter pinks, juicier fruits, it really all comes down to what the female bowerbird is after. a male will work tirelessly trying to make their pad better stand out more than the other, even if it means going the whole Duchamp way about it and exhibiting the unusual, like a chocolate bar wrapper in one case. And though one might not understand but the unusual does tend to attract a certain females.
Once the curation is completed, the female bowerbird swoops into the scene and like a blind date selects her partner and they enjoy a short-live romance before parting their ways.
BBC Life Website | Vogelkop Bowerbird Wikipedia | Vogelkop bowerbird’s work process |
images via somagallery / brollieboy
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